


Blinded By The Light

by ekbe_vile



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Bestiality, Blood and Gore, Bloodplay, Broken Bones, Captivity, Dark, Eventual Happy Ending, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, M/M, Mind Rape, Pain, Rape, Rape Aftermath, Restraints, Serious Injuries, Stockholm Syndrome, Torture, Vomiting, Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 11:15:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6702496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ekbe_vile/pseuds/ekbe_vile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the fight against Lucifer, Castiel falls behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on livejournal in August of 2010. Seriously dark fic - please heed the warnings, and let me know if there's anything I've missed!
> 
> Blanket spoilers for Season 5, but nothing post "99 Problems."

For his plan to work, they’re going to have to light Sam up like a Christmas tree. Which is not the phrasing that Castiel uses, but if similes help Dean understand the situation, he’s willing to play along. 

Because the situation is _dire_ , a last ditch effort to lure Lucifer away from the San Andreas fault before he sets off an earthquake that will bring the entire west coast to its knees. And Lucifer only has this one chance––a literal once-in-a-blue-moon event––to shift the very axis of the planet, so the bait is going to have to be something big, something juicy, something like his true vessel.

Dean is waiting for them in a motel 150 miles away. It’s just Castiel and Sam, sitting across from each other in a foreclosed farmhouse in Kelley, signs outside advertising an upcoming public auction. Sam’s looking out the window, watching the stars, watching the way the moon shrinks, slipping into the shadow of the Earth.

“Sam,” Castiel says, draws the younger Winchester’s attention back to him. “We have to act soon.”

“I know,” Sam nods. “I just...” He looks down at the broad plane of his chest as though he can see through his flesh to the sigils burned into his ribs. “They’ll still hide me when we’re done, right?”

“Yes,” Castiel assures him. “I don’t intend to remove the sigils, only illuminate them for a moment. Long enough to catch Lucifer’s attention.”

Sam shoots another glance to the window, to the waning moon. “All right,” he nods. “Let’s do this.”

Castiel reaches out to Sam, hesitates a moment before laying his hand on his companion’s chest, before closing his eyes and concentrating. He’s going to have to be fast––he’s always been fast, but he’s not what he once was, these days, and there’s more at stake than his own life––

Sam gasps at the contact, starts to pull away, catches himself and holds steady. Castiel knows that it burns––can see it in the way Sam’s upper lip pulls back to bare his teeth, the way his nose wrinkles and his nostrils flare. It’s a necessary pain, but Castiel catches Sam’s eyes with his own and gives him a small nod of encouragement.

Then they feel it, a sudden pull like a vacuum as the air pressure drops, as the fabric of space stretches and tears and Lucifer is _right there_ behind Sam. 

Castiel’s fingertips fly from Sam’s chest to his forehead, sending him back to Dean––away from Lucifer––back to safety. And he’s about to follow––stretches his wings on that other plane of reality, feels the atmosphere shift and open around him––

But something yanks him back, and it’s like ropes of fire lashing around him, tearing him between dimensions.

Castiel slams into the far wall, feels plaster crumble and ribs crack under the impact. For a moment he can’t see, is surrounded by a pulsing blackness, and when he tries to breathe there’s no air. His lungs spasm and he gasps but it’s like breathing under water, like his blood itself has turned to liquid pain.

And Lucifer is right in front of him, the brilliance of his true form leaking through the cracks of his crumbling vessel. He grabs Castiel by the throat––lifts him with one hand to hold the lesser angel up against the wall. Castiel struggles for purchase––claws at Lucifer’s wrists and kicks uselessly, but his feet don’t so much as scrape the floor.

“Where did you send him?” Lucifer growls, his nails digging into the flesh under Castiel’s jaw and he can feel the pop as they puncture stretched skin, can feel blood well up and ooze down his neck.

Castiel shoots a glance over Lucifer’s shoulder to the window––catches sight of the last sliver of the moon before it disappears. 

Lucifer follows his gaze to the window and for a moment his face is a perfect storm of petulance as he realizes he’s been tricked. But it passes quickly. Lucifer’s expression softens into disappointment, his brow furrowed and a sigh upon his lips. “Ah,” he breathes, “I see.”

He releases his grip on Castiel and the lesser angel slumps to the ground, gasping for air that simply will not satisfy his starved lungs. He should flee, try to escape while he can, but his grace is dim and cowering inside and his physical body is exhausted and weak.

Lucifer crouches down before Castiel, reaches a hand out to brush back dark, unruly hair. “That was brave of you, little one,” he murmurs, smiling. “Foolish, but brave.”

Castiel fights the urge to press into that palm, to seek his brother’s caress, to take comfort in the archangel. Fear and longing twist within him, tearing his grace between duty and desire––even now Lucifer’s grace is a blinding thing, and Castiel has been alone for so long... “Don’t,” he growls, clenches his teeth and turns his face away.

Lucifer bares his teeth, grabs Castiel’s chin and forces his gaze. “Don’t what?” he snarls, and his grip is like an iron vice closing on Castiel’s jaw. 

Castiel exhales, makes no reply––can’t meet his brother’s gaze––stares at a spot just over Lucifer’s shoulder.

“Look at me, little brother,” the Devil whispers, his anger a dangerous, unpredictable thing. It recedes, mingles with a glimmer of sadness as he draws Castiel’s face closer to his, close enough to share his breath. “Don’t you see? Whether it’s Heaven or Hell that emerges victorious, there’s only one way this can end, for you.” And Lucifer presses split, bleeding lips against Castiel’s, charged with the distant echo of Heaven. 

A shudder passes through his body, from head to toe and back again, and his grace surges up, reaches blindly for the Morningstar and aches when Lucifer pulls away, his voice a hiss in Castiel’s ear––

“You already belong to the fire.”

Something inside Castiel breaks at those words––the something that should be telling him to fight as Lucifer grabs a fistful of his hair and yanks––the something that should tell him to swallow back his cries as Lucifer drags him across the room to the filthy mattress lying on the dust-caked floor. 

But Castiel doesn’t fight, and he makes a pathetic, fearful noise because Lucifer has spoken a truth Castiel has known for some time, now. And if he hasn’t admitted it to himself, if he keeps going when all hope seems lost, it’s only because he’s too afraid to stop, too afraid the truth will overtake him.

Lucifer throws him down on the mattress, smiling as though he knows exactly what’s running through Castiel’s head. “If I win, you’re mine,” the Morningstar purrs. “If I _lose_...you’re mine. There’s no point fighting the inevitable, little brother. Really––” And Lucifer settles on the edge of the mattress beside Castiel, sighs when the lesser angel scoots away from him. “––you’re only making things worse for yourself.”

“My fate is irrelevant,” Castiel murmurs, but his head is bowed and his body trembles in horror at the implication of his own words.

“Ah, but you don’t believe that.” And this time, when Lucifer inches closer to him, he cannot pull away––is locked in a cage of blistering, tainted grace––can little more than blink when Lucifer once again cups his chin, whispering, “You’ve only just begun to know of pain.”

Then Lucifer twists his hand hard and fast, snapping Castiel’s jaw. 

And the pain is immediate and overpowering––Castiel can’t see, can’t think, is drowning in the sharp agony crashing over and over against the side of his head. He curls up on himself before he’s even aware that Lucifer’s hold on him has loosened––wraps his arms around his head, tries to hide his face between his knees but can’t because the blood goes rushing to the wound and it _hurts_ and all he wants is to keep it out of sight, bury it deep and secret.

Lucifer watches, head canted to the side. “How was that?” he asks, as though he doesn’t know all the subtle increments of pain. He grabs Castiel by the hair again, turns the lesser angel’s face up––sighs at the sight of tears squeezing from the corners of too blue eyes. “Shall we go again?”

Castiel says nothing––would not, even if his jaw weren’t hanging loose and bloody and far too heavy to speak. He closes his eyes, but even then he can sense the sneer starting on Lucifer’s face, can feel the Devil’s breath hot and smoky, the way his blackened grace begins to swell and expand, wrapping around Castiel, coiling tight around his own fragile grace and crushing like a boa constrictor.

Lucifer moves slow and calculating, working his hands under Castiel’s trench coat, working it back off his shoulders. But this time, Castiel does fight––not with his grace, but with his vessel, wrenching away, kicking out, shouting useless pleas. Lucifer breathes an annoyed huff, grabs at Castiel’s hip and pins him to the mattress.

The bone shatters beneath Lucifer’s hand, and Castiel screams.

“Hush, little one,” Lucifer says. “Save your voice––”

And his hand moves to Castiel’s throat, thumb stroking gently over the Adam’s apple, but Castiel feels the pinpoint of grace puncture his voice box like a spinal tap. He gasps, starts to cry out _No––_ but there’s nothing, just a rasp of air.

Lucifer smiles softly, grabs Castiel’s ankle and jerks him down, flat on his back. He’d scream––feels the way his shattered pelvis is coming apart under the weight of his leg––but he can’t, just lies there, fingers digging into the mattress as Lucifer leans forward to unbuckle his belt. “So human...” Lucifer whispers, gently tugs Castiel’s pants down over his hips, mindful of the patch of dark bruises already spreading across pale flesh. “So fragile...all bound up in this weak, wanting flesh...” 

And then he’s right there, hovering above Castiel, light bleeding through his eyes as he brushes lips over Castiel’s temple, mouths at his earlobe, nuzzles Castiel’s jaw, laughs when the lesser angel tries to turn away. Lucifer lays a hand against Castiel’s cheek, forces him to keep still as he presses their lips together in something that is not a kiss, is too brutal and crushing to be the intimate gesture Castiel has seen human lovers exchange.

Castiel grabs at Lucifer’s shoulders, tries to push him away, but the Morningstar slides his hand over Castiel’s biceps, sends the muscles into spasming fits. Castiel opens his mouth in a mute cry, his arm a searing, dead weight as it falls back to the mattress, and Lucifer takes the opportunity to plunge his tongue into Castiel’s mouth, to taste and take and violate.

“You are so much more than this, little brother,” Lucifer murmurs. He works efficiently, now––takes hold of Castiel’s shoulders, manhandles him onto his stomach. “More than this body––” He pushes Castiel’s shirt up, bares the pale expanse of his back––swipes his tongue up the knobby column of vertebrae––grazes his teeth over the sensitive plane between Castiel’s shoulders where incorporeal wings join so intimately with his vessel. “––more than this pain.”

And Lucifer bites down, breaks the skin and worries at the flesh like a wild animal. Castiel exhales when he wants to scream, lurches forward, feels the tear of muscles, the hot pulse of blood suddenly rushing down his side. He tries to push himself up, but his arm is still paralyzed and useless and there’s nothing but crushing agony below his waist. He can’t get his limbs underneath him, can’t fight as Lucifer shifts and sinks his teeth into the curve of Castiel’s neck where it meets his shoulder.

Then Lucifer’s nudging Castiel’s legs open with his knees, settling down between them and his weight on Castiel’s shattered hip makes him thrash recklessly and it hurts, _God it hurts_. And all he can think is _stop_ , all he can feel is _pain_ , and suddenly he forgets who he is, what he is, why this is happening to him...

Lucifer pulls back enough to grab at Castiel’s hips, to jerk him to his knees. But his right leg, twisted and throbbing and pulling at the shattered pieces of his pelvis, just won’t support him, and he slumps to the side. But it’s good enough for Lucifer, and it _burns_ when he pushes his cock into Castiel’s unprepared ass. Lucifer makes a sound deep in his chest like the turning of tides, throws his head back and digs his fingers into Castiel’s flesh like talons.

The sound resonates through Castiel’s back, through his chest and his shallow breath and his _whole body_ is vibrating with the Morningstar’s _true voice_. 

And it’s too much for what little remains of Castiel’s grace––all heat and energy and _glory_ like Heaven rent asunder. And light––there is _light_ and Castiel feels the edges of his grace blur, bleeding into brilliance as his vessel comes apart beneath Lucifer’s, as the force of Lucifer’s thrusts unravel space and time and matter with the devastation of an atomic bomb.

*

Dean’s pacing trenches in the floor, the alternating pink-orange-green glow from the flashing neon sign outside keeping him on edge, making his stomach turn unsettling rotations in his abdomen. The fact that he’s stuck in this shit bucket motel while Sam and Castiel play keep away with the Devil doesn’t help matters.

Then the air around him pulses like a membrane, and when Dean whirls about Sam is just _there_ , looking windblown and dizzy and Dean hurries forward to grab his arm before he can drop to the floor. “Did it work?” Dean helps his brother back to one of the beds, eases him down on the edge of the mattress. “Did he come?”

Sam just nods, breathless, unable to form words.

Dean huffs and flops down beside his brother, feels his own relief pass through him on the lingering ripples of adrenaline. But it doesn’t last. “Where’s Cas?”

Sam’s head pops up from where it’s fallen into his hands and he looks around the room as though aware of his surroundings for the first time. “I don’t...he was right behind me...”

And just like that, Dean is up and pacing again, every muscle in his body tensing until he’s shaking, ‘til he can’t breathe quite right and he’s digging his cell out of his pocket.

Sam pushes his fingers back through his hair “He probably just...went somewhere else, so Lucifer wouldn’t follow him here.”

Dean already has his phone to his ear, his heart way up in his throat and Castiel’s name half-formed on his lips, but the call goes straight to voice mail and Dean’s heart goes crashing back down to the bottom of his stomach. He almost throws his phone.

Sam’s on his feet, hand outstretched to grasp Dean’s shoulder, and Dean wonders how much of the concern oozing out of his brother is for him, and how much is for his angel. “Cas is fast...he’s probably just out of range...”

Dean shakes his head, moves away from the protective circle of Sam’s arm. “This feels different...”

He’s heading for the door, one hand reaching for the car keys where they lie on the table, but Sam gets in his way––grabs him by the shoulders and pushes him back into a chair. “Dude, it hasn’t even been five minutes.”

Which means it’s too soon to be freaking out––Dean knows that, he does, but as he scrubs his fingers back through his hair he can’t fight the dread welling up in his gut, twisting and turning through his intestines, pressing to get out. “You’re right...we should wait.” But Castiel is alone out there, maybe with the Devil on his heels, and Dean hasn’t felt this kind of helpless fear in a long time, not since he was stuck in that white room, unable to reach Sam, unable to save him––

Sam sighs, plucks up the keys to the Impala and tosses them to Dean. “It’s at least two hours back to Kelley. We can drive while we’re waiting.”

*

It’s still an hour and a half shy of dawn when they hit Kelley, but the sky is clear and the moon is full, casting long shadows across the road. Dean lets the Impala coast down the long gravel drive, headlights off, but his caution is unnecessary––the house where they had lured Lucifer lies in quiet ruins.

“Shit,” Sam breathes in the passenger seat, leans forward and grips the dash as the full scale of the destruction comes into view.

There’s nothing left of the house but its steel skeleton, windows and dry wall blown out across the overgrown lawn. Moonlight shines through the gaps, catches bits of rebar clawing out of the rubble. The Impala slows to a stop at the perimeter, startles a cloud of _something_ into the sky––too jagged and irregular to be dust, too soft to be demonic.

“Moths,” Sam whispers, his eyes following the strange, pulsing movement in the sky. “There are moths _everywhere_.”

Dean climbs out of the car, lets the door hang open because he doesn’t want to disturb the moths blanketing the ruins. For a moment he just stares––watches wings fold and open and close against the moonlight, rippling and glittering like diamonds or whitecaps off the California coast. Sam steps up beside him, sucks in a breath, doesn’t have to say that this is bad.

“Cas!” Dean’s voice sets a wall of moths in motion, sets them off into the sky and the moon briefly dims with the fluttering of powdery wings. He’s stumbling up what remains of the walk, kicking aside bits of plaster and roofing and fluffy gobs of insulation in his hurry to reach the remains of the house. He hears Sam huff and follow behind, calling out _Castiel!_ , but there’s something like defeat in his brother’s voice, something that doesn’t expect an answer, and Dean has to resist the fierce urge to turn around and punch him.

The concrete front steps are intact. Dean uses them to bridge the worst of the rubble, stands at the top for a moment and gazes down into the foundation. There’s nothing but ragged shadows and peaks of light, nothing moving, nothing alive. Dean calls his angel’s name––catches his lip between his teeth as he waits in the following stillness, ears straining for anything, a groan or a breath or a rustle of feathers.

“Dean?” 

He twitches at the sound of his brother’s voice. “What?”

Sam’s crouched amidst shredded panels of drywall and crumbled blocks of concrete––he doesn’t look up to where Dean stands on the steps, just drags something out from the wreckage––something tan and rumpled, covered in dirt and dark, slippery stains.

Dean clambers down to Sam’s side, snatches a fistful of the tattered cloth and rubs it between fingertips that know the sticky feel of blood. “Oh, Cas––” He closes his eyes as he buries his face in Castiel’s trench coat. He can still smell his angel in its folds.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean won't sleep until he knows what's happened to Castiel.

They throw caution to the wind, decide to hole up in the first motel they find––run down, the only structure for miles on a stretch of sun-bleached fields left fallow. No one answers when Sam rings the bell at the front desk––he has to go searching around behind the office, between the dumpsters, where he finds the night clerk making out with a girl half his age. Sam clears his throat to get their attention, and they glare at him as though he’s the jerk for wanting to check in.

Sam needs to sleep. It’s been over twenty-four hours, now, and with the threat of the blue moon past his adrenaline has just about run out. But Dean’s pacing tight circuits around their room, flipping a knife between his fingers, and the anxiety pouring off him, the need to _act_ , pricks at Sam’s skin, keeps him awake and alert. They _both_ need to sleep, but neither will, not until they know what’s happened to Castiel.

Sam dials Bobby.

*

Everything is dark, and Castiel is dizzy. He has a sense of up and down, but at the moment the world’s pitching him from side to side. He wants to lie down, thinks that might help smooth out the vertigo, but when he cracks his eyes open it’s to realize he’s already on the ground.

Cold, packed dirt, unyielding beneath his bare shoulder––the floor of a barn, its walls bowed with the strain of holding up the roof, slots of light leaking through cracked and split panels. He lifts his head to better assess his surroundings, but his vision swims, makes him groan and sink back to the ground.

He’s naked––can feel the cool air moving through the small hairs on his body, caressing his leg, sliding up over his hip and it suddenly shoots fire through his body, each fragment of shattered bone pulsing with agonizing heat. Castiel gasps, tries to draw his leg up toward him without thinking, instinctively wanting to shield the wound. But he can’t––can’t because of the pain––can’t because his leg lies heavy and throbbing and will not obey his conscious commands.

Castiel takes a breath, pushes himself up on his elbows to try for another look around. His arm works––is sore and complains under his weight, but at least it’s healed. An experimental roll of his jaw confirms that injury has righted itself, as well––the joint pops back into place, makes him flinch, but the pain is insignificant compared to his hip.

He has to get back to Dean. Dean will know what to do, will know how to ease the pain while his dwindling grace slowly puts him back together. 

But Dean is hidden from him, and Castiel assumes he has misplaced his cellphone along with his clothes, and there’s the danger still that this might be a trap, that Lucifer is just waiting to follow him back to Sam––

There’s a growl somewhere in the darkness, in the furthest corner of the barn––low and hungry––fiery breath and acidic saliva.

Another growl answers from the opposite side of the barn, behind Castiel. He resists the urge to whip his head about and look, knows that in his weakened state there will be nothing for his human eyes to see.

The hell hounds move in closer, their claws scraping at the packed dirt with each step. Castiel hears them meet along the wall––hears the snap of jaws as they butt heads and bare teeth, one asserting dominance over the other.

Castiel is in no condition for a fight––has to get away, now, while the two hell hounds are distracted by each other––but when he closes his eyes and tries to shift through space, something yanks at his throat, jerking him back into the all too physical here and now.

He gasps for air, slumps forward, and even that slight movement is enough to recapture the hell hounds’ interest. The growls continue, and now he can hear their steps coming in close, slow and steady, hot breath whuffling around Castiel’s ankles.

He jerks away, starts to scramble backwards over the floor, but there’s that choking pull at his throat again, a rattle of chains, and a dull horror churns in Castiel’s gut as realization sinks in.

A heavy collar of iron is locked around his throat, the chain which leads from it bolted to a cruel spike in the ground. He’s tied up like an animal, with the animals––feels blindly along the edges of the collar, feels the binding sigils seared into the metal––gasps and jerks away again when a mouth full of jagged teeth closes experimentally around his ankle

The hell hound makes a sound that is not a bark, is too low and ragged-edged to be a bark, before it clamps down on Castiel’s foot and tugs. The creature whips its head from side to side, jerking at Castiel’s limb, makes him scream as it yanks on his broken pelvis. He’s pushed up on his hands, trying to crawl away, but the hell hound tugs him back down to the ground, drags him the few paces his chain will allow before it lets him go. He can feel it settle behind him, his leg laid across its paws––can feel the huff of breath before it licks at the fresh blood now gushing from a severed artery.

The second hell hound whines as it tries to nose in, to taste the blood. The first growls, snaps at it––Castiel tries to use the opportunity to drag himself away, fingernails bending back in the hard, unforgiving ground, but the first animal sinks its teeth into his calf––no ripping or tearing, this time, just a warning, holding him still.

And the other one is now nosing at his thighs, swiping at old, dried up blood and sweat with a rough, searing tongue. Castiel hisses––draws his good leg up toward his chest––but the fight’s bleeding out of him, he’s cold and weak and trapped, left here like a play thing for the hell hounds, and he thinks he finally gets what Dean means when he talks about chew toys––

Then there’s an explosion of white light, a relentless blast of wind, the booming echo of command. Castiel hides his face in his arms, tries to make himself small as the maelstrom sweeps over his body, driving the hell hounds back. They whimper and whine, cowering before their master, and Castiel’s bound grace shudders and spasms in part terror, part joy, at the realization.

_Their master had returned..._

The wind dies, the light fades, and a gentle hand falls between Castiel’s shoulders, strokes down his spine, through his hair, curls under his jaw to turn his face up. “Ssh,” Lucifer whispers. “It’s all right, now.”

Castiel’s breath comes short and fast, doesn’t provide enough oxygen to his vessel, and with the iron collar around his throat he is all vessel, all human need. He wants to pull away––wants to jerk back and spit in the Morningstar’s face––but he’s so cold, so weak, can’t so much as lift his head, only Lucifer’s hand supporting him.

“Please forgive me, little brother,” Lucifer murmurs. His deigns to fold his legs beneath him, to settle beside Castiel––to slip his hands beneath Castiel’s arms and draw him into his lap. “I did not intend to stay away so long,” he sighs, his breath soft and sweet (too sweet, like rotting things) over Castiel’s ear. “The hounds can be impatient.”

A whimper slips from Castiel’s lips before he can rein it in. Lucifer’s voice is different, now, his grace warm and enveloping, the darkness withdrawn to the edges. Castiel closes his eyes, can almost pretend that all is well, that he is home, rocked in Heaven’s embrace. It would be so easy to lose himself, if not for the deep ache of past betrayals, if not for the desperate fluttering of his vessel’s heart...

“You are not healing properly.” Castiel can hear the frown in Lucifer’s voice the same way he can feel the hand sliding over his hip. He exhales, tries to remain still as Lucifer’s bittersweet grace smoothes away the rough edges of his pain. “You are so far fallen,” Lucifer marvels, “so tightly bound to this flesh––if it were destroyed now, you’d perish.”

Castiel shudders, digs his fingers into something soft as Lucifer probes the new wounds left by the hell hounds––realizes, belatedly, that he’s clutching at Lucifer’s thigh. But he cannot bring himself to let go––knows, now, how easily the pain of separation would sweep him away.

“Let me help you, little brother,” Lucifer says. “Let me heal this fragile thing you’ve become––”

And Castiel wants to protest being called a “thing”––wants to refuse his brother’s offer, to shake him off, push him away, somehow endure the pain on his own––but he doesn’t have a choice in the matter. Lucifer’s grace bleeds into him, is too much, makes him gasp and arch as it probes his interior world, seeking out its heavenly reflection.

The last time Lucifer touched him like this, it seemed the whole universe ended, the power of contact like an atom bomb in Castiel’s mind, tearing him apart so that his brother could remake him. But this time Lucifer is cautious, deliberate, merciful as he brushes Castiel’s grace with his own.

And it’s like the dawn––slow building light chasing away shadows, flooding all the dark places within until Castiel forgets everything of fear and doubt. He buries his face in Lucifer’s lap, cries out wordlessly as bones knit and new skin forms without a trace of a scar.

And somehow, Lucifer heals more than just flesh––lets Castiel’s grace feed on his own like a starved animal, gluttonous with the fear it might never sample such a banquet again.

Lucifer pulls away, drawing his grace back into himself, and Castiel whines at the loss. “What a greedy thing you are,” Lucifer chuckles, tightens his fingers in Castiel’s hair. “Not that I can blame you––I know what it is, to be alone. But for something so small––” He takes a breath, gently, _firmly_ pushing Castiel's head down into his lap. “It must be terrible.”

Castiel lets Lucifer guide him, closes his eyes as he nuzzles into the crotch of his brother’s jeans, finds the human flesh straining with want. Lucifer makes a pleased noise, thumbs open the button fly with one hand while the other continues to stroke Castiel’s hair.

And there’s nothing for Castiel now but the warmth of his brother and the wondrous absence of pain––the pain of physical wounds, the pain of hopelessness and despair, the pain of doubt. Here he doesn’t have to think, and he feels nothing but what the Morningstar allows. And he is so desperately grateful––mouths Lucifer’s erection through the thin material of his boxers––eagerly sucks on the head when Lucifer at last works himself free.

Lucifer exhales, moves his hand to the nape of Castiel’s neck, encourages the lesser angel to take more. “You poor thing,” he purrs, eyes never leaving Castiel’s face. “So sad...so alone.”

Castiel’s eyes flicker up, catch his brother’s––but he can’t hold that gaze, is too small and miserable. He hollows his cheeks, swallows deeper, his tongue instinctively working up and down the underside of Lucifer’s cock, tip tracing the vein.

“I’m not like the others,” Lucifer continues, but his voice is a little less steady, his cadence uneven, eager. “I know what you’ve suffered, what you’ve sacrificed for that ungrateful, unworthy _human_ ––”

Anger flares up in Castiel at the sound of those words, at the thought of Dean, and he wants to deny it, wants to tell Lucifer that when it comes to Dean he regrets nothing, because every sacrifice was born out of love.

He starts to pull back, _needs_ to tell Lucifer he’s wrong, but his brother is one step ahead of him. He draws Castiel up by his shoulders, eases him down onto his back, and Castiel remembers in flashes––the stench of sulfur, acrid smoke, blood and cum––the way Lucifer hovered above him, sucking the light from the room, from Castiel, like a black hole––

But now Lucifer’s mouth is on his, tender and kind, lips gently bruising and Castiel cannot help but open for his brother, for all that light, all that grace...

Lucifer’s weight settles between Castiel’s legs, exposed cocks rubbing together. Castiel gasps and arches, startled to find he’s grown hard. He draws his knees up––feels Lucifer smile against his throat, against that one spot he keeps sucking and nibbling and _marking_. “You deserve so much more, little brother,” Lucifer breathes, something hungry in his voice, something worshipful.

And Castiel lies pliant and forgetful beneath the Devil, legs open and hips rising in eager little thrusts. All the while Lucifer smiles––as he gathers Castiel’s wrists in one hand and holds them pinned above his head––as he uses the other to line his cock up with Castiel’s tight, unsuspecting hole.

Castiel’s eyes roll back, his body arching away from the pain of penetration. He utters a strangled cry, tugs helplessly against the hand clamped around his wrists. It burns––he can’t breathe––his body was not meant for this. But even as the thoughts form, tendrils of Lucifer’s grace return, coil around him, poke and probe and penetrate his body as surely as the cock buried in his ass. But where between his legs there is only pain, where Lucifer’s grace tickles his own there is the bliss of heavenly union.

He clings to his brother like a man long lost at sea. And though Lucifer’s grace is charred around the edges––though the relentless snap of hips pounds the air from the lesser angel’s lungs––it is so like home, Castiel could weep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Assuming Castiel doesn't have some sort of angel cloaking device up, a simple locating spell should work.

_Assuming he doesn’t have some sort of angel cloaking device up,_ Bobby reasons, _a simple locating spell should work._

“Great,” Dean mutters, “now all we gotta do is find ourselves a cooperative witch.”

Sam’s phone lies open on the table, switched to speaker, crowded by battered books and empty coffee cups. Sam stares at it, fingers pushed back through his hair, skull throbbing. They’ve been at this for hours––the tinny strains of Bobby’s voice through the phone are like needles poking in his eyes and ears. And Dean––

Dean looks the way Sam felt after he and Bobby had buried him, after the deal and Lilith and the hellhounds––looks raw and desperate, potential energy coiled in every muscle, ready, _needing_ to lash out, to do _something_. Sam knows that feeling, and his guts twist and shift because this is torture, seeing Dean like this, so strong and yet so completely helpless.

_You don’t need a damned witch, Dean,_ Bobby growls, sounds as worn thin as Sam feels. _I got a spell here. Easy enough, common ingredients––sage and cloves, cardamom and hemlock––_ He pauses as though he’s come upon something unpleasant. _You wouldn’t, uh...happen to have anything of the angel’s, would you?_

For a moment there’s hope in Dean’s eyes, bright and eager and he’s leaning toward the phone where it rests on the table, hanging on every word. But the look is gone almost as soon as it’s come, withered and dry and Dean’s face is stone cold grey as he sinks into a chair. “We left his coat in Kelley,” he mutters, head sinking to his upturned hands. 

Sam expects Bobby to call his brother an idjit, but the rebuke never comes. Bobby only sighs, tired. _Wouldn’t have worked probably, anyway...it needs to be something personal, something with an emotional attachment._

Sam sits up straight, his heart suddenly lurching up into his throat. “I think I have something that might work.”

Dean lifts his head just enough to stare at Sam, eyes narrowed in part question, part accusation. 

And Sam knows, suddenly, that he’s crossed some unspoken line––recognizes that _something_ in his brother’s green eyes as jealousy. Because Sam can save Castiel when Dean can’t––Sam has something intimately connected to Castiel––Castiel, who has always, unarguably, been _Dean’s_.

“Well?” Dean snaps, his voice low and harsh. “What is it?”

Sam takes a breath––pushes out of his chair and crosses the room to his backpack, digs through the inner pockets where he keeps his fake IDs, his credit cards, his hex bags and good luck charms. But when he finds it, he hesitates––breathes slow and deep, steeling himself for whatever reaction Dean might throw at him. Because whatever it is, he knows it won’t be good.

Dean’s eyes widen and his jaw goes a little slack when Sam holds the amulet out to him, the little Babylonian idol dangling from black leather thread, cool to the touch now (and always) in the absence of God. “No,” Dean shakes his head, “it won’t work.”

“Castiel carried it for months,” Sam murmurs. “It meant something to him––his quest––”

“It won’t work!”

Sam pulls his hand back as though trying to protect the amulet from his brother’s wrath.

Dean kicks his chair away, returns to pacing, one hand rubbing at the back of his neck, the other clenching and unclenching into a fist. “It won’t work,” he mutters to himself, then spins about to face Sam. “You know what that amulet _means_ to him? It’s abandonment and pain and _failure_ , Sam!” Dean pulls back, a little, checking his anger as he meets his brother’s gaze. “That amulet symbolizes everything Cas has ever suffered.”

_Dean!_

They both turn to the cellphone where it lies on the table as though Bobby were there in the room with them.

_Would you two knuckle heads quit yer angsting and pay attention?_ Bobby huffs. _Suffering is a_ damn _strong emotional connection. If the angel associates even a fraction of what Dean says with the amulet, then there’s a good chance the locating spell will work._

Sam looks to his brother––looks for relief or hope or _something_ ––but his face is hard, his body rigid, and Sam knows better than anyone what that means.

Dean is punishing himself inside.

*

The next time the hellhounds grow impatient, Lucifer doesn’t return in time.

It starts with curiosity––the smaller of the two hounds inches toward Castiel on its belly, seemingly submissive and harmless. Castiel is tired––his body is healed, but he still hungers vaguely for something he cannot (or is unwilling) to define. He draws his legs close to him, shifts and backs away the short distance his chain will allow. It tugs at the collar under his chin as he crawls along the circumference, trying to keep as much distance between him and the hound as possible.

Because he might not be able to see it, but he can hear it––hear each panted breath, the dribble of saliva from its gums, the slather of its tongue over teeth and snout. And he knows what it looks like––knows those red eyes, scales and spiny hairs, curved, serrated fangs––and he’s glad, in a way, that he can’t see it, now. Because the hound interprets his pathetic attempts at escape as play––huffs and pounces on him, its weight crushing, its claws tearing at tender new flesh.

And now the dominant hellhound is interested, too––trots over and observes as the lesser hound mouths at Castiel’s shoulder, at his arm and his side. And Castiel knows he needs to protect his throat––struggles as much as he can beneath the beast, writhing and kicking until he’s twisted onto his stomach. And this way he can curl up, protect his front––

But then there’s heat between his legs, a lick of fire up the cleft of his ass. Castiel curses in spite of himself, back arching up against the sudden, terrible burning as it caresses the patch of skin between his balls and his hole, as it works insistently at the latter, swiping a path of searing agony over his body’s most intimate parts.

And he groans, sickened as he realizes the hound is lapping at him, lapping up Lucifer’s cum where it still oozes from his sore, reddened hole. And then another thought strikes him––the way the smaller hound digs its claws into his shoulders, puncturing but not tearing flesh––the way it mouths at the back of his neck, teeth grazing, drawing blood from the surface––

“No,” he growls, tightens every muscle and tries to push himself up beneath the hellhounds, because this he will not endure, he will not be _defiled_ by these animals––

The hellhounds do not appreciate his fighting spirit. The larger one half barks, half hisses, the sound raising the hairs all over Castiel’s body, shaking dust from the rafters. The weight on top of Castiel shifts, suddenly doubles––the two hounds bark and growl and snap at each other on top of him, their scrabbling claws tearing gashes in Castiel’s back. He can’t move beneath their weight, can’t even get his arms beneath him and then there are teeth in his side, below his ribs––jaws clamping into muscle and bone, jerking and ripping and the blood pours out of him so fast, muddies the ground beneath him––

The world is pulsing in and out with his heart, pumping blood to the wound, gushing out of his body. And he can’t breathe, can’t really see, is only dimly aware when a vice locks onto his leg just behind his knee and yanks, flipping him over. He reaches up and grasps at a muzzle as it descends on his throat, tries to push it away but its slippery with drool or blood and it burns like acid, spines digging into his palms when the hound pushes back against him.

He can’t hold it off, not like this, and at last his hands just fall away and the teeth scrape over the iron collar and then are in his throat, in tendons and arteries and this is not playful, this is not marking, the deliberate crunch of teeth deep, deep into his esophagus is deadly.

Castiel has no voice to cry out, no air to drag into his lungs, but the thought swells in his mind, desperately reaching––

_Please, brother, help me––_

And Lucifer is _there_ , is light and glory and cleansing fire as he burns away the hounds, burns them from existence and the embers swirl in the dark expanse of the barn for only an instant before they are gone.

Lucifer moves quickly, then––crouches at Castiel’s side and sweeps his hands over wounds, over gaping holes in flesh, shredded muscle and tissue and nerve endings quivering in the open air. “Castiel,” he whispers, “Castiel––” as he lifts the lesser angel’s head into his lap, as he nudges up the collar, closes his hands around Castiel’s throat and the healing is almost like being strangled, is too painful to bear and Castiel tries to wrench away.

“Be still,” the Morningstar commands, and Castiel’s whole body freezes, can no longer twist and writhe against the pain, is a thing no longer under his command. And it feels so far away––even Lucifer and his sad, burning eyes feels so far––and Castiel’s restrained grace shudders within him as he sinks into the cold and the dark––

Something hot splashes over his lips, pulls him back from the depths. “Castiel!” Lucifer’s shouting, face now right there, right above his own, and Castiel lets his tongue slide out from between his lips, tastes blood. “Drink, little brother,” Lucifer urges him. “Drink, or you’ll die. Please––”

Castiel cannot deny his brother––lets his jaw fall slack, welcomes the sticky metallic taste of blood onto his tongue––

And each swallow becomes easier, the taste ever sweeter, so that when Lucifer starts to draw his wrist away Castiel moans and holds onto it greedily.

And Lucifer smiles as he strokes the lesser angel’s soft, black hair, quietly encouraging him to drink his fill.

*

The locating spell doesn’t produce GPS coordinates, but it does narrow their search down to the southeastern corner of Vermont. Bobby suggests that the results could become more precise the closer they get, which means the spell will have to be repeated. It’s good news, and Dean rationalizes there are worse things to smell like than a head shop.

He and Sam are on the road again before sunrise. They’ve got more than half the country to traverse, and even driving straight through, taking shifts behind the wheel, it’s going to be _days_ before they’re even in the same state as Castiel. 

And there’s no guarantee that he’ll still be there, no way to know if Lucifer or whoever has Cas decides to move him, not unless the brothers take the time to stop and perform another locating spell every twelve hours. And while Dean knows that might actually be a good idea, like taking regular compass readings on a map, he can’t bear the thought of that lost time, the extra hour or two that Cas will spend in Lucifer’s hands while they cross their _t_ ’s and dot their _i_ ’s.

Sam’s slumped down in the passenger seat, knees against the dash, gaze out the side window. It’s not raining, but the night is wet, leaves a mist on the car. Not enough that Dean can leave the windshield wipers running, but enough that he has to flick them on from time to time. Sam’s breath comes and goes in little clouds on the glass.

“Do you want it back?”

Dean startles, shifts in his seat to hide his surprise. Sam’s still not looking at him, still staring out the window, but he’s got the amulet in his hand, is rubbing it between his fingers like a worry stone. “No,” Dean says, short––regrets it when he catches the faint twitch of Sam’s lips, reflected in the glass. “I mean, of course I do,” he tries again––sighs and rubs at the back of his neck. “I just...I shouldn’t have left it, that was dumb. I wasn’t thinking.”

Sam finally turns to him, twisting in his seat so that he leans on his side, faces his brother. “You do a lot of stupid things,” he half-smiles. “It’s yours, Dean––” He holds the amulet out, the thread twined around his fingers. 

“No,” Dean shakes his head. “I threw it away...” Trails off, because it means so much more, and even he knows that––to him, to Sam, to Cas––he threw them away, their faith in him, their love. He brushed it off like another chip on his shoulder. “I don’t deserve it.”

Sam studies him for a long moment, his brow furrowed in consideration, before he at last draws his hand back to him and tucks the amulet into his coat’s inner breast pocket. “I’ll just hold onto it, then.”

*

Lucifer does not replace the hellhounds he destroyed. They are difficult to come by, on Earth, and he makes no attempt to hide his displeasure at having to kill them to save Castiel. 

But Castiel doesn’t notice, is too lost in the sensations sweeping his body in gentle waves, the lingering traces of his brother’s grace wrapped around his own, pulsing in his blood stream. And he dimly thinks that he should be appalled, that he should hate Lucifer and himself for submitting, but it’s so good he doesn’t even try to fight when his brother manhandles him onto his knees.

And his forehead touches the ground like a supplicant in prayer, and Lucifer guides his arms back until his wrists rest beside his ankles. And there’s cool iron against all four––cuffs that hold him like that, folded in half, his ass in the air and his face in a puddle of his own congealing blood.

But Castiel can’t bring himself to care––wriggles a little in the restraints, finds the ankle cuffs hooked to the opposite ends of a bar that will not let him close his legs––knows he should feel trapped, but feels only _safe_.

Then Lucifer smoothes a hand over Castiel’s back, murmurs a soft promise to return soon, and is gone.

And Castiel immediately feels his absence––feels it like a vacuum sucking the oxygen from the barn––feels it like the cold air settling over his body, seeping through his pores, spreading out through his vessel until it finds his grace.

And the cold seizes his core, twists and squeezes, and it’s so deep and so total that Castiel gasps and tries to pull away. But the chain which clinks and rattles from the collar around his neck has grown shorter, won’t let him lift his head, and no matter how he wrenches on his wrists he cannot free them the leather cuffs hooked to his ankles, hooked to the spreader bar.

A part of him understands what is happening––knows that if Sam could become addicted to demon blood, then angel blood must have similar, devastating effects. But it’s a small, detached part of him––the shreds of Heaven that still remain stand back and watch as he struggles against this all too human pain. Because the _need_ is so present, is quickly becoming too much to bear, and he jerks and cries out in wordless frustration.

He doesn’t know how long it lasts, just knows that it gets worse and worse with each beat of his heart until he’s sore and whimpering, his face sticky with tears and dirt and old blood. And he doesn’t understand how not long ago he felt so strong and renewed, like himself again, like an angel, and now he’s this whining, quivering thing, and he hates it and dreads it, knows that this is the fate which awaits him at the end of the apocalypse. No matter who wins, he cannot return to Heaven, is doomed to flesh, to needs and wants and fears.

He’s sobbing, rubbing his face against the earth, breathlessly gasping, “Please, please, please––” when Lucifer returns.

“Please what, little one?” the Morningstar murmurs, crouched at Castiel’s side, a hand gently stroking between his shoulders.

He chokes, tries to push back into the touch, every muscle and tendon, blood vessel and nerve ending reaching out for his brother. “Please,” he rasps, flexes his fingers, doesn’t even know what he wants, anymore, only that he _needs_...

“You have to tell me, little one, or I can’t help you.” Lucifer smiles, head canted to the side, knuckles now massaging rapturous circles into the flesh where incorporeal wings sprout. “Let me help you.”

Castiel turns his head in the dirt, twists his neck to look up at his brother. The barn is dark, but what little light seeps through the slats in the walls and the holes in the ceiling falls behind Lucifer, casts his face into shadow. Castiel can’t make out his expression––there’s only that darkness, and the heat––he closes his eyes when the Morningstar lays a hand to the nape of his neck and squeezes. “Lucifer,” he breathes––feels relief seeping slow through his brother’s touch, knows that he needs more, knows that he needs to be saved. “Please, help me...”

The Morningstar leans down, brushes his lips over Castiel’s ear as he whispers, “Close your eyes.”

And Castiel obeys without a thought––squeezes his eyes shut even as light floods the barn, burns the line of Lucifer’s profile into his retinas. And for a moment it’s like he’s looking down at himself from above––can see this weak, naked human bound and locked in a position of submission, its body covered in dirt and blood and yet somehow still radiant, still glowing––

Then there’s only the light of Lucifer’s grace, more brilliant than a supernova, a star collapsing into a black hole.

When Castiel opens his eyes again, he’s no longer in the barn. This new place is faded shades of blue and beige, weathered by ocean air. And he’s lying in a bed so large he can’t help but feel small––a bed that is downy white blankets and fluffy pillows and everything is the softest cotton, well-worn, familiar and comforting.

And Lucifer is above him, hands braced on either side of Castiel’s head, naked and smiling and radiant, a halo of light circling his head. He leans down––nuzzles into Castiel’s hair, kisses gently beneath the line of his jaw, and Castiel tips his head back to bare his still-collared throat without a thought to duty or loyalty or shame.

“You see?” Lucifer says as he settles between Castiel’s legs, large hands moving over Castiel’s sides, capturing his arms and guiding them up above Castiel’s head. “All you had to do was ask––”

Castiel sighs, lets himself drift as their cocks rub together, filling him with slow swells of warmth, each liquid pulse building as Lucifer presses down against him. The Morningstar catches his jaw in one huge hand, holds him steady even as Castiel flinches, his body quick to remember pain. But then Lucifer is kissing him, and it’s everything sweet and good and Castiel gives in to it completely.

Lucifer’s lips curl into a smile against his, and then he has his hands on Castiel’s hips, rolls them both so that Castiel is on top, straddling his waist. Castiel gasps, struggles to find his balance––hands splayed out across Lucifer’s chest––Lucifer’s cock snug against the cleft of his ass. “Show me how much you want it, little brother,” the Morningstar croons, his grip still firm on Castiel’s hips, thumbs pressing under the dish of his pelvis and there’s an ache, another memory, and Castiel whimpers, starts to pull back, but Lucifer won’t let go, purrs as he pushes up, “Show me.”

And he lifts Castiel as though he weighs nothing––lifts him and positions him and Castiel tenses up, expects pain even now, but there’s only the slow glide of heat, a dull stretching as the Morningstar penetrates him. He groans, lets his head roll back as he sinks down, as Lucifer fills him up, pushes in deep.

Castiel squirms, rolls his hips against the still unfamiliar intrusion, but Lucifer’s hold on him tightens in warning, denying him movement. And he’s certain just staying like this will drive him mad, because he can feel the edges of Lucifer’s grace tickling at him, and his own wants to reach out for it so badly, but it can’t, is still restrained by the collar at his throat. All Castiel can do is grasp at it with his physical body, to throw himself at it like a swimmer into the waves, but Lucifer won’t let him and he whines with need.

“Lucifer,” he whimpers, dares to meet his brother’s gaze, shivers at the love and lust and endless darkness he finds there. “Please––”

And at last Lucifer’s grip on him loosens, and he can move––lifts himself instinctively, thighs straining to hold him up, only the head of Lucifer’s cock still inside––abruptly lets go, impaling himself, shooting bolts of exquisite heat up his spine.

Lucifer watches, neck and chest flushed, as Castiel fucks himself––watches as the lesser angel works himself up and down, back arching, hands reaching behind to grasp Lucifer’s knees. And it is beautiful and obscene, the way Castiel can contort his vessel. Lucifer growls––can’t help himself––reaches up and grabs one of the D rings in Castiel’s collar, pulls the lesser angel down to claim his mouth.

And he rolls them again so easily, pinning Castiel to the mattress, grabbing Castiel behind the knees and pushing his legs up, folding him in half. And his hips piston into the lesser angel, thrusts brutal and inhuman, pushing Castiel up the bed until he’s all but crushed against the headboard.

Then Lucifer’s wrist is against Castiel’s lips, warm and slippery with blood, and Castiel accepts the offering, lets Lucifer feed him. And it’s so good and too much––Castiel tosses his head and cries out as the grace of an archangel sears through him, lights up every nerve ending, mixes with the physical ecstasy churning low in his abdomen and he comes apart completely in his brother’s arms.

And when the moment has passed, when Castiel can breathe again, can think and feel with an awareness that was lost in the torrent of his orgasm, he turns his head and presses his face into the pillow––sees the bright red spatters of blood on the sheer white cotton sheet––feels Lucifer’s body on top of him, already cooling, heavy and confining. 

Castiel’s breath catches in his throat as he chokes on a sob, but Lucifer is there to calm him––strokes a powerful hand through his hair and whispers meaningless words, murmuring to the lesser angel in his true voice.

And Castiel shudders, circles his arms around his brother and holds on, gasping, “Thank you, thank you...”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel doesn’t have to answer, not with words, because his body and his consciousness and even his collared grace all scream at once, Yes, yes, anything you ask.

They’ve lost Castiel.

One minute they’re in the middle of the locating spell, incense and light curling between them, the next, the little glowing orb that represents Castiel snaps out of existence, and the room goes dark.

Dean blinks, a black dot burned into his vision where the ball of light last hovered. “Sam?” He hates the trembling edge of panic in his voice. “The light went out.”

Sam’s staring at the empty patch of air, too––darker than black, black like a hole––his brow furrowed and his lips parted and Dean can actually see the gears turning in his brother’s head, sees the expression on Sam’s face change from confusion to something more primal, something like despair.

The realization hits Dean in the gut, knocks the air out of his lungs: they’re too late. Cas is gone.

He’s punched three holes in the wall before Sam grabs him, wrestling him across the room and down onto one of the beds. Dean’s still fighting, still throwing curses and fists, but Sam is steady above him, his weight pressing Dean down into the mattress. “Stop it,” he says, his voice calm and quiet even as Dean bucks up, trying to throw him off. “Freaking out won’t help us get Castiel back.”

And now Dean can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t even look at his brother––he goes still, remembering the last time he saw Castiel, remembering the too human fear in his angel’s eyes. Dean knew Castiel was afraid to face Lucifer, and yet he sent the angel off without so much as a “good luck,” too terrified himself that it might become a goodbye. 

He regrets every time he pulled away from Castiel’s touch.

Sam gives Dean’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “We’re going to find him, Dean,” he says, but the imperfect fit of his hand over Castiel’s scar rubs in tender, vulnerable places like ill-fitting shoes, brings the blood up to the surface, swelling like a blister. 

And Sam has the amulet, threads the cord through his fingers, rubs familiar circles over the idol with his thumb before holding it out.

Dean takes the amulet from his brother. It’s still warm.

*

Lucifer fucks Castiel slow and deep, his thrusts deliberate, his endurance preternatural. Castiel is barely aware of his brother’s presence, barely conscious of his own body, his whole world shrunk down to the downy pillow under his head and the iron spreader bar that won’t let him close his legs and the relentless, torturous drag of the cock in and out of his ass. His body needs to come, cries out for completion with increasingly pathetic weakness. He has never needed anything like this, before, not even (he thinks) in his quest for God.

And now he mutters his Father’s name senselessly, the way a human would, and Castiel can tell it displeases Lucifer but he just can’t make himself stop. Lucifer has had him like this for hours or an eternity, just pounding in and out and Castiel whimpers to know this is not about sex, this is about the Devil breaking him down until Castiel will say anything, do anything to please his brother.

“Lucifer,” he begs, “please...”

And the need gets worse, because it’s more than just Lucifer fucking his ass and ignoring the arousal hanging hot and heavy between Castiel’s legs. There’s also a terrible numbness at the ends of his limbs and in his chest, slowing his movements and his heartbeat like swimming through Arctic waters. He needs another kind of heat, craves it, so close he can smell it, pumping through the Devil’s borrowed veins.

Castiel needs his brother’s blood.

“Listen to you,” Lucifer grunts, his hands dragging down Castiel’s sides, fingers digging into the tender flesh between ribs. “So greedy...” His voice is serrated with anger, brutal words mirrored with each violent stroke of his cock. “Always taking––taking––taking––”

And then Lucifer pulls out, leaves Castiel cold and aching and so empty. He squirms, tugging at his wrists where they’re shackled outside his ankles, all linked together by that unforgiving bar. He swallows back a desperate whine, fears his brother’s anger instinctively. Because this is better than before, this soft white bed beneath him, the pillow that supports his head, the sweet-smelling breeze that stirs threadbare curtains in the windows.

Lucifer stretches out beside Castiel, close enough to share each other’s breath––trails fingertips up the lesser angel’s neck, cards them through sweat-damp hair. “I’ve done so much for you, little brother,” he murmurs, and up close like this Castiel can see the way Lucifer’s veins throb just beneath the skin, straining to break through the surface, too much power to exist in ordinary human flesh. 

The Morningstar’s touch wanders, his palm curling against Castiel’s cheek in a mockery of tenderness before pulling away. Castiel follows the movement with his eyes, swallows against the treacherous dryness in his throat as Lucifer draws a pin from the air and pricks the tip of his own finger.

A single drop of blood beads from the wound. Lucifer brings it close to Castiel’s face––so close he can smell it––so close he can almost reach out and catch it on the end of his tongue. So, so close––and yet Lucifer denies him, holds the sweet promise of grace just out of reach.

Castiel cranes his neck, every muscle straining toward that taste of Heaven, that glimpse of home. “Please, brother,” he whines, “please––”

Lucifer tilts his head, still keeping his blood at an agonizing distance. “I’ve been good to you, haven’t I?” 

“Yes,” Castiel rasps, “so good...”

And Lucifer’s leaning close again, his breath a cool puff of air over Castiel’s ear as he says, “Can you be good to me now, little brother? Will you do something for me?”

And Castiel doesn’t have to answer, not with words, because his body and his consciousness and even his collared grace all scream at once, _Yes, yes, anything you ask._

The Devil smiles as he at last wipes the bead of blood over Castiel’s eager lips.

*

Dean’s eyes water, stung by the incense in the air. The smoke burns his throat, makes him cough and wheeze and chug a bottle of cold water. He needs a break, they’ve been working on the locating spell for hours, but Sam has barely blinked since they started and he’s the one light in Dean’s dark, right now. So Dean stays close, paces increasingly tighter circuits around the room, the collar of his tee shirt pulled up to cover his mouth and nose.

It’s been six hours since they lost Castiel’s “signal,” six hours of that wretched clenching in Dean’s chest, the churning in his gut, the racing thoughts. Dean can’t pin them down, gets these flashes of memories––the deer-in-the-headlights look on Castiel’s face in the brothel––that first time Castiel tilted his head and looked _into_ Dean, and _knew_ him. And he can’t put a name to the emotions curling and writhing around inside, except for the fear––that he knows, and there’s no fighting as it coils like a python around his thrashing heart. It’s the fear of loss, the fear of failure, and with each passing moment without sign of Castiel, the fear squeezes tighter.

Dean doesn’t make friends easily. Not real, _I’ve got your back,_ friends––he’s lost too many and endured pain too great to actively seek them out or welcome them in. But Castiel is different––Dean isn’t supposed to _lose_ Castiel––

There’s a snap and pop, the smell of phosphorous, and Sam’s excited voice: “Dean!”

And he spins around, locks eyes with his brother before letting his gaze shift to the little swirling ball of light hovering above the map.

Sam grins big and stupid like a puppy. “We’ve got him.”

And while Dean is elated, while he barks a relieved laugh and flops back onto the bed, the euphoria doesn’t last. The incense hovers around the ceiling, pulls apart like moth-eaten funeral shrouds as it drifts in front of the lamp. Castiel isn’t dead, and they’re close enough now to narrow his location down to specific coordinates on the map, but what condition will he be in when they finally reach him? Dean feels that old familiar weight settle in his stomach––groans and rolls over, burying his face in a pillow. He can imagine it all too easily––Castiel wounded, at the mercy of demons, vulnerable now that he’s cut off from Heaven. Dean swallows and tries to shake the thought away––sees instead Lucifer, towering over Castiel, fists tight in charcoal black wings, twisting and jerking and _tearing_ ––

“We need a plan,” Sam is saying. “We need _help––_ ”

Dean rolls onto his back, welcomes the smoke in his eyes and his throat, uses it to mask the unsteadiness in his voice as he mutters, “Who the hell is gonna help us, Sam? Ellen and Jo tried and it got them killed. The Colt is useless. Crowley’s awol, and I’m betting the angels would as soon spit on Castiel as look at him––”

“What about Gabriel?”

Dean sits up, stares at Sam where he’s twisted around in a chair. “The Trickster?” he scoffs. “Right...because we didn’t have enough fun _last_ time...”

“I don’t hear you coming up with any ideas,” Sam snaps. He snuffs the still smoldering incense and stands, moving about the room with a kind of frantic energy. He stops abruptly––peers at Dean through the lingering curtains of smoke––“Last time, it was about us,” he says. “This is about Castiel.”

Dean rubs at his eyes, tries to take a steadying breath but the air is so _dense_ in here he can hardly stand it. He understands what Sam is saying––Gabriel and Castiel are _brothers_ ––and while there might not have been much love between them back in TV Land, Dean has to hope there’s some familial sense of responsibility left in Gabriel, the same sort of devotion that would inspire him to flee Heaven just to avoid choosing between brothers.

*

They drive out to the middle of a field. The night sky is heavy with mist and cold, the dampness churning, clinging to Dean’s coat where he leans against the Impala. There’s no moon, just a faint glow in the sky overhead where the moon should hang, vague ambient light bathing every surface, highlighting the trees on the distant ridge line, the wayward strands of Sam’s hair––

Dean watches as his brother stomps down a patch of grass––watches as Sam starts building a modest fire ring, stones clacking together, bundles of herbs and darker, less readily identifiable objects piled in the center. Sam looks back to him, asks for a light––Dean tosses Sam his zippo.

He’s never felt quite so useless as he does now, watching his brother perform yet another ritual. He knows helplessness, still tastes the tang of it when he thinks of Jo and Ellen, but this is different––this is the ego-crippling realization not that there’s nothing that he can do, but that there’s nothing he knows _how_ to do. It’s as though he skipped Rituals and Incantations 101 and now the deficiency in his education is coming back to bite him on the ass. And true, most of this stuff Dean is pretty sure Sam learned from Ruby, and his lip still curls at the thought of the demon bitch’s taint all over his little brother, but if it’ll help them save Castiel (and he knows with sickening certainty that they can’t do it on their own, and what that means for their chances in the upcoming Apocalypse), then he’ll just have to grin and bear it.

Sam settles back on his heals, smoke and fire curling up from the circle of stones. “That should do it,” he says.

Dean shifts against the car, cringes as he hits a patch of condensation. The cold seeps through his jeans. “How long is this going to take?”

Sam glances back at Dean over his shoulder, chews at the edge of his lip. “I...I’m not sure. It’s not a summons so much as a call...”

“Great,” Dean huffs, “so Dick Wad can just hit ‘ignore’ if he doesn’t feel like talking.”

“What, and miss out on another stimulating conversation with the infamous Winchester brothers?”

Dean jerks toward the voice, his hand flying reflexively to the Colt nestled against his side. Sam’s already on his feet, but he makes no move to draw a weapon––just grabs Dean’s arm and holds him back, keeps him steady.

And the Trickster–– _Gabriel_ , Dean has to remind himself––is right there. Ten paces off. Cool as a June cucumber, high grass rustling about his legs in a breeze Dean can’t feel.

“Gabriel,” Sam says, and Dean can’t help flinching because somehow speaking the archangel’s name makes his presence more real.

Gabriel smiles, wanders leisurely toward the Impala. “Sam,” he says, his voice indulgent. Then his gaze shifts to Dean and he stops, takes a step back. “What do you want?”

Sam doesn’t waste time. “We need your help.”

“My help?” Gabriel snorts and rolls his eyes at some supreme irony. “Let’s recap–– _holy fire_.”

_“Mystery spot,”_ Dean bristles.

Gabriel dismisses him with a vague gesture. “Like you remember any of it.”

Sam huffs. “I do.”

“Not the point.” Gabriel’s face hardens, his eyes narrowing to dangerous slits as they slide between the brothers. “We’ve been through this before–– _you_ start the Apocalypse, _you_ clean it up.” And then he turns away––starts to move off through the tall grass like a shadow in the fog––

“It’s Castiel,” Dean spits out. “Lucifer has Castiel.”

Gabriel stops, but he doesn’t look back. “Castiel knew the risks when he threw in with you two.”

Sam lurches forward, jaw clenched. “He was trying to help––”

And now Gabriel turns back, face pinched with anger. “He should have followed orders!”

The hairs on the back of Dean’s neck prickle. He edges in front of Sam, tastes the ice in his own voice. “Are you honestly going to stand there and pass judgment on him? You’re the one that bailed on your family at the first sign of trouble!”

And there might not be any holy fire holding Gabriel, but the glare he levels at Dean is the same caliber of wrath and ruin he dealt back in that abandoned warehouse.

Dean closes in on the archangel, presses into his personal space and meets his unblinking gaze without hesitation. “I know what you did in TV Land.” He reaches out, grips Gabriel’s shoulder. “Every time you sent Cas away, you weren’t trying to hurt us: you were trying to protect him.”

Gabriel snorts, “Did Castiel tell you that?” but he doesn’t pull away from Dean’s hand on his shoulder.

“No,” Dean shakes his head, “but I know how far I’d go to protect Sammy.”

Gabriel’s not looking at him––is staring off, his brow furrowed, lips pressed into a thin line. He doesn’t blink, doesn’t twitch, doesn’t even _breathe_ ––Dean’s about to give the archangel a shake when he suddenly snaps back to life, shoots the elder Winchester a tight, painful grin. “You like pie, right?” he asks. 

Dean blinks, at last releases his hold on the archangel’s shoulder. “Uh...yeah?”

*

And then they find themselves in a twenty-four hour diner outside Albany, a banquet of Belgian waffles, pancakes and Danish pastries laid out before them. “Dude,” Dean rasps, glances sideways to his brother and then across the table to Gabriel. “I don’t even...what?”

Sam shrugs, and then they’re both watching as a buxom waitress sets an entire blueberry pie down in front of Gabriel. He gives her a sly wink before she moves off, and then he’s grabbing a fork and going to town. “Would you believe I’m a stress eater?” the archangel mumbles around a mouthful of blueberry and whipped cream, eyes still following the tick-tock swing of the waitress’s hips. 

Dean rolls his eyes. “If by eating you mean––”

“We don’t have time to play games, here,” Sam cuts him off. “ _Cas_ doesn’t have time.”

Gabriel dabs at his chin with a napkin. “You’re right on that one. How do you know he’s even still alive?”

“We’ve been tracking him,” Dean explains, “with a locating spell.”

Gabriel’s gaze shifts to Dean, head canted to the side like a bird. _Like Castiel,_ Dean thinks, and he shifts his weight on the red vinyl seat of the booth because he feels naked and open, like Gabriel’s looking in, reading the words written on his ribs. “A locating spell,” Gabriel repeats, a devious smile quirking one corner of his mouth. “Then you must possess something...special to him.”

And it seems like Gabriel’s saying something more with those words, like he’s threading code through them that only Dean can decipher. Like there’s some secret to unlocking Gabriel’s real meaning that only Dean knows.

But Gabriel doesn’t give him time to ruminate. “There are only a few reasons Lucifer would keep Castiel alive,” he says, setting his fork aside. “I’m just going to go ahead and assume it’s the worst one.”

Dean doesn’t want to know, and yet he does––rubs sweaty palms over the thighs of his jeans and arches an expectant eyebrow at Gabriel.

“There’s a ritual,” the archangel explains, “for strengthening a vessel. It requires angel blood. _Lots_ of angel blood.”

Dean looks to Sam––sees the way his brother’s face goes pale and clammy, the way his massive frame trembles almost imperceptibly beneath his jacket. “And if Lucifer manages to patch up his current vessel,” Sam says, low and cautious, “he won’t need me.”

Gabriel nods, a flash of something like understanding softening his face as he addresses Sam. “Exactly. And Apocalypse Later...becomes Apocalypse Now.”

“What about Cas?” Dean asks.

“In his weakened state? The ritual will kill him.”

Dean feels his intestines spasm and cramp like he’s going to be sick. He locks his jaw, drops his gaze to where his hands fiddle with silverware, just needs a second for the pain to pass––

“There’s a catch.”

And suddenly Dean can’t tear his eyes away from Gabriel’s face, is looking at the archangel and feeling something like the beginnings of hope fluttering in his chest.

“Castiel has to give his consent.” Gabriel’s quick fingers sneak out to hook a plate of pastries, drag it close. “I’m sure that’s the only reason he’s still alive.”

“Castiel would never agree to help Lucifer,” Sam says, and he sounds so certain, Dean wants to believe him––

Gabriel brings his palm down on the table hard, makes the plates and glasses and the Winchesters jump with the force of it. “He’s the Devil, Sam!” the archangel snaps. But then he catches himself––settles back into his corner of the booth and breathes, fingers steepled before his face. “Don’t underestimate him,” Gabriel finishes. “Lucifer can be incredibly...persuasive.”

*

Castiel groans when he realizes he’s back in that barn, packed earth cold beneath his bare feet, clouds of dust and dirt billowing through the dim beams of light from outside. He can see his own blood on the floor, dark, slick smears and clumps of stained hay. A shudder runs through him, makes him step back into Lucifer’s waiting arms. The Morningstar runs his hands down Castiel’s side, bows his head to mouth at the curve of the lesser angel’s neck. “Don’t be afraid, little brother,” he whispers. “It’ll be over quickly.”

Castiel nods, but he’s still trembling, every hair on his body standing on end as Lucifer places a hand on the small of his back and walks him toward the center of the barn. The light shifts as they move forward, leaks through the slats in the walls and holes in the ceiling where wind has torn away the shingles and he can see the sigils, can see the wards and the traps and he has the sudden urge to run.

But Lucifer is like a wall behind him, hands smoothing up and down over his biceps. “It’s okay to be afraid,” he breathes in Castiel’s ear, tongue flicking out, curling along the shell of cartilage. Castiel’s knees wobble––he can’t hold himself up––but Lucifer’s arms are around him, strong, holding him steady. “So brave, little one,” he murmurs. “So beautiful...”

And his hands slide down Castiel’s arms to the leather cuffs around his wrists, fingers tracing the metal rings that bind the lesser angel’s hands together. Castiel can feel Lucifer’s lips curve into a smile where they rest against his neck––can feel the way the Morningstar has grown hard, pressed up against his ass––whimpers pathetically and pushes back for more. Lucifer chuckles, the sound reverberating through Castiel’s chest, and reaches up to pull a cruel meat hook and chain down from the ceiling. The Morningstar fits the hook through the rings between the cuffs and steps away.

Castiel shudders at the loss, crippling cold assaulting his exposed back. He watches as Lucifer moves off to the wall––sees with a flick of his eyes how the chain runs up to a pulley block in the ceiling, and then down to the winch where Lucifer now stands. And Lucifer doesn’t look back at him, seems intent on his work, a low whistle in his throat as he cranks the handle of the winch.

The chain tightens, pulls Castiel’s arms up over his head, pulls painfully at his shoulders. He gasps, stretches his toes, struggling to keep his weight on his feet as Lucifer hoists him up and up. And when he stops, when he locks the winch and turns to look at Castiel his eyes flash with fire and rage and raw hunger.

Castiel turns his head when Lucifer presses against his front, squeezes his eyes shut and ducks the kiss. “Come now, Castiel,” his brother breathes, “haven’t I given you so much? Haven’t I made you whole again?” He lowers his voice, speaks the words into the corner of Castiel’s mouth. “You promised you would do this for me.”

Castiel doesn’t feel whole or strong, but when Lucifer’s grace tickles its way past his lips, uncurling in his mouth like liquid electricity, he gasps and jerks against his bonds, desperate for more.

“You promised...” Lucifer hisses, pushes a thigh up between Castiel’s legs, rubs it against Castiel’s hard, weeping cock. “Do this for me, Castiel. _Give me your consent.”_

Castiel lets his head fall back, hopelessly off balance, Lucifer’s leg between his own lifting him just enough to lose his tenuous contact with the ground. He cries out, his own weight jerking his arms mercilessly in their sockets, gravity dragging him down onto Lucifer’s thigh and he can’t help it, can’t help the frantic snap of his hips as he grinds down, seeking that friction, riding the pleasure and the pressure. And he can barely form thoughts, much less words, except for one, and he screams it as his spine arches and he comes and comes and comes...

And Lucifer drops to his knees before Castiel––kisses and bites and sucks along his hipbone, licking up sweat and come as he quickly moves down to Castiel’s groin, where thigh joins torso, down the inside of his leg and he has a knife, now––slices into pale flesh and the pain is like fire, coils around the last shocks of Castiel’s orgasm and _squeezes_ out another debilitating round of pleasure-spasms.

And somewhere outside there’s screaming, these desperate, hollow sounds like the wind blowing through rusted armor on a forgotten battlefield. The sound reaches Castiel’s ears, pushes at his consciousness, demands his attention but it’s so hard to focus when Lucifer’s sucking at the wound in his leg, making these wet, slurping noises and the blood is coming so fast it’s all over Lucifer’s face and down the front of his shirt and Castiel feels cold, numbness settling heavily into his extremities.

It’s dark, now, the light from outside fluid and inconstant and Castiel can’t make out colors, just shapes that come and go in sickening, strobe-like effect. There’s a figure in front of him, tall and dark and for a moment when the light moves outside, passes through the gaps in the walls of the barn it touches on a face, brings out the red sheen of blood, the flash of bared teeth.

Castiel gasps, his heart leaping in a kind of horrified realization. “Sam––”

*

All Dean can see is Castiel––Castiel, pale and dirty and strung up like a slab of meat in a slaughterhouse––Castiel, with his head thrown back and his hips bucking forward and blood gushing from his inner thigh like a fucking faucet. And Lucifer, the Devil himself, soaked in Castiel’s blood, sucking and lapping and it’s so filthy, so obscene Dean feels his stomach lurch, feels certain he’s going to puke. 

He doesn’t look at Sam, standing there with squared shoulders and a snarl, drenched in demon blood and calling out to Lucifer–– _can’t_ look, because if he does he might forget that it’s _not_ Sam, that Sam is safe and waiting in a motel three towns over.

But Lucifer doesn’t know that, and his head snaps up at the sound of Sam’s voice. He has the look of a wild animal, Castiel’s blood smeared across his face, eyes glowing like embers as he turns to confront what he believes to be his true vessel.

“So it comes to this?” Sam-who-is-not-Sam spits, naked disgust in his voice. “Really, Lucifer––you think the blood of a half-fallen angel can compare to me?”

Lucifer’s smiling as he stands, already forgetful of Castiel, moving toward Sam like a predator. “The opportunity presented itself,” he croons. “Unless you’ve come to make a better offer?”

Dean feels a nudge at his shoulder, sees Gabriel in his peripheral vision, crouched and otherwise intent on Sam. Dean has seen Gabriel create illusions before, but he’s never seen this sort of intensity in the archangel’s face, brow furrowed, thin lips pressed into a tight line, every muscle tense and poised as he leans forward. “I would hurry if I were you,” Gabriel hisses. 

Dean nods, waits another moment, waits until Lucifer is three whole paces away from Castiel, fixated on Sam. And then he rushes forward, crouched low, steps careful and quiet. The air is charged around Castiel, where Lucifer knelt––it raises all the hairs on Dean’s body, fills him with a sick, roiling sense of vertigo. He pushes through the waves of nausea––stops in front of Cas and God, he’s still bleeding, blood gushing from the cut in his leg like something out of a horror movie and Dean realizes Lucifer must have cut into the femoral arteries. And Cas is so pale, head tipped forward now, lips a startling grey––“Cas?” Dean whispers, pats his cheek, desperate to bring some color back. “Come on, Cas, wake up––”

“...Dean?” Castiel’s voice is soft, barely more than a breath as he lifts his head and glassy blue eyes strain to focus on the face in front of him. 

Relief hits Dean hard and he has to struggle not to laugh out loud. “Ssh, I’ve got you,” he murmurs, wraps his arms around Castiel’s waist and lifts, freeing his bound wrists from the hook that holds him suspended. The angel is frighteningly light and Dean can already feel blood soaking through his own clothes, turning his relief to panic. Castiel’s arms, still linked together by leather cuffs at the wrists, fall to Dean’s shoulders and for a moment the angel hangs from Dean’s neck like he hung from the chain in the ceiling.

Dean adjusts his hold on Castiel, shifts the angel to his side and tries not to notice the way his hands slip and slide through blood on naked flesh. He hears Sam’s voice behind him, taunting Lucifer, but it’s sounding less and less like Sam, the jibes more personal, insults crafted by someone who’s had a long time to brood––

Dean’s gaze shoots to Gabriel. The archangel is trembling, lips pulled back now to bare teeth in a grimace and it’s not just the strain of creating a walking, talking replica of Sam taking its toll. Dean tightens his hold on Castiel’s waist, half-drags, half-carries him away from the center of the barn. And he can tell by the way Sam’s yelling, now, that Gabriel is struggling to keep Lucifer’s attention.

But it’s not enough––Dean can feel the Devil’s eyes between his shoulderblades, can feel the burn and the pull but he doesn’t look back, keeps his own gaze fixed on Gabriel who’s suddenly pale and wide-eyed like a deer in the headlights. And then Castiel’s struggling in Dean’s grip, squirming and kicking and whining like a child taken from its mother. Dean has to wrap both arms around the angel, has to crush Castiel against his own body because even weakened by blood loss, Cas can put up a hell of a fight––

And then there’s light behind Dean, light like an atom bomb, like the light that came pouring out of the final seal, when Sam loosed Lucifer on the world. And Dean closes his eyes and drops to his knees, still clinging to Castiel, still trying to shield him even as the sound of Lucifer’s _true_ voice reaches his ears, stabbing like needles and Dean can’t even hear himself scream––

But then there’s a hand on a shoulder, another voice cool like water, not in his ears but in his head, urgent: _Think of some place safe._

*

The world shifts sideways. Dean opens his eyes and they’re in the panic room, safe in Bobby’s basement––him and Castiel and Gabriel, all three of them huddled together on the floor, and there’s no sign of Lucifer, no blinding light, just the cool darkness and the gentle _whump-whump-whump_ of the fan turning overhead.

But Castiel is trying to push Dean away, is shaking his head and muttering, “No, no,” and he’s bleeding, _God his blood is everywhere..._

Dean rips off his own shirt, tears a long strip out of the flannel and moves to cinch it tight around Castiel’s leg. “It’s the femoral artery,” he’s saying, one hand twisting the tourniquet, the other pressing down on the wound. His gaze shoots to Gabriel––Gabriel who’s leaning back, looking stunned, like he can’t believe they’re all still in one piece. Dean snaps. “He’s going to bleed out!”

Gabriel physically shakes himself. “Right, wouldn’t want that––” 

And when Dean looks again the wound on Castiel’s leg is gone, the flesh smooth and unbroken beneath the slick of blood. Dean releases the tourniquet––leans back, hands on his own thighs, just breathing. Castiel goes still, slumped against Dean’s side, the furrow smoothed from his brow and the tension gone from his muscles and Dean can’t really believe it’s over. He circles his arms around his angel and holds on, face buried in the tangled mess of Castiel’s hair, trying not to cry and failing because, seriously, how many more second chances is he going to get?


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean watches the light of morning nudge through the blinds, crawl slow and lazy across the floor, turning black to grey, banishing the shadows of night. It feels like the end of a battle, like Dean should be thankful to have survived.

It was when he and Sam were apart, in those tense weeks after Lilith and the final seal, amidst a kind of senseless wandering and fruitless solitude. The quiet was starting to kill Dean, too deep for the radio to fill, relentless hollow _absence_ throbbing in his chest and nothing could plug it up, not booze or women or the hunt. He lay in bed and stared at his phone, thumb hovering over the “send” button, his location already typed into the message field like a devil’s trap just waiting on that final stroke of paint.

That night, when Dean called, Castiel came. And the angel was windblown and faintly sunburned, the color fading even as Dean noticed it, the smell of salt and sand and _ocean_ so heady around him Dean couldn’t help stepping closer and breathing him in. “Where’ve you been?” Dean grinned. “Acapulco?”

Castiel shook his head. “It was an island.”

“Somewhere tropical though, right?” Dean teased. “Babes and beaches and strawberry daiquiris with little umbrellas?”

“The island is the result of recent seismic activity,” Castiel said, ignoring Dean’s question. “There are no people.” He paused, eyes darkening on faraway thoughts. “I imagine...it is quite like the Earth was, in the moment of creation.”

Dean felt chastised. “Sounds nice,” he said, scuffed at the carpet with the toe of his boot. And then something struck him––“You weren’t there?” he asked. “When God created the world?”

“Not strictly speaking, no,” Castiel replied. “His materials were vastly scattered.”

Dean thought that was supposed to mean something more than he was grasping. He drew his legs up on the bed, leaned back against the headboard, draped his hands over his knees. “So, was He there?” he asked. “You know...creating?”

Castiel sighed––actually _sighed_ ––as he settled beside Dean on the bed. “No,” he admitted. “I sometimes think...He is somehow _between_ creation.”

“Like the holes in a net?”

Castiel tilted his head to look at Dean. “Yes, in the holes,” he nodded.

And Dean should have wondered, then, why he didn’t mind the way Castiel’s thigh pressed against his.

*

Dean clutches at Castiel with a mindless, animal ferocity. He paws at Castiel’s chest, over his ribs and at his throat, feeling for open wounds, broken bones, the reassuring rhythm of the angel’s pulse. It takes Dean a long moment to calm down, to realize they are safe in the panic room, that Gabriel has healed the worst of Castiel’s injuries, that Dean’s really holding his angel and they’re safe, safe, _safe_.

Dean feels Gabriel’s eyes on him, glances up in time to catch the knowing smile on the archangel’s face. “Aren’t you adorable,” Gabriel quips, adjusts his weight where they’re all still sprawled across the floor. He makes himself comfortable, stretching his legs and leaning back on his elbows. “I always knew there was a reason I liked you.”

Dean rolls his eyes and turns his attention back to Castiel, half lying in his lap, eyes closed and lips parted and so very, very naked. There’s still blood, and dirt, and some other sticky substance that holds all the filth together and the sight makes something in Dean’s chest clench. “Oh, Cas...” he murmurs, tries his hardest not to imagine all the ways Lucifer might have defiled the lesser angel, but it’s hard not to when the physical evidence is so apparent. Dean smoothes his hand down Castiel’s arm, thin and pale beneath the hardening splotches of blood––carefully unbuckles the leather cuff from around Castiel’s wrist.

Gabriel makes a noise and hops to his feet, paces the panic room as Dean moves to the other cuff. “Don’t thank me or anything,” he teases, drags a finger through a ward spray painted black on the wall.

Dean doesn’t really hear him. He cradles Castiel’s head, fingers tracing the edges of the iron collar around the angel’s neck. There are no seams, and sigils engraved into the metal pulse with a faint light.

The weight of the thing, the way it has chafed and bruised Castiel’s neck, stirs a sudden wave of nausea in Dean’s gut. And yet he can’t look away, can’t bear to seek out Gabriel’s gaze as he pleads, “Get it off him.”

“No,” Gabriel answers, curt, “not yet.”

Dean’s attention snaps up to the archangel. “What the hell?” he demands. “Why not?”

Gabriel heaves his shoulders in a sigh, returns to sit beside Castiel, to twirl his fingers through his younger brother’s limp hair. “The collar is restraining his grace.” Gabriel says it as though it explains everything.

It doesn’t, not for Dean. “All the more reason to hurry up and zap it off him,” he demands.

“It’s not like that,” Gabriel snaps, and Dean can feel his annoyance like a jolt of electricity. Gabriel sighs again, his gaze returning to Castiel’s face. “He drank Lucifer’s blood,” the archangel murmurs. “When the withdrawal symptoms kick in, he could destroy the entire state of South Dakota.” Gabriel looks meaningfully at Dean. “And no one would be able to stop him from running straight back to the Devil.”

Dean is tired, his limbs heavy and aching because this, this he doesn’t think he can endure. “You’re saying,” he starts, “it’s going to be like when Sammy...?”

Gabriel mercifully cuts him off with a nod. “Yes,” he says, “it’ll be like that. Except, you know, multiplied by _the Devil_.”

Dean’s eyes squeeze shut. He struggles to swallow past the thickness in his throat.

“It’s not going to be fun––for either of you,” Gabriel continues, “but it will pass. Castiel’s tougher than any of us ever gave him credit for––he had to be, to drag you out of Hell.”

Dean casts Gabriel a withering look.

The archangel holds up his hands defensively. “That’s not a bad thing,” he chuckles––flicks his wrist and a folded piece of paper appears between his fingers. He offers it to Dean. “When the worst has passed, trace those symbols on the collar in your own blood. It’ll break the seal and release Castiel’s grace.”

Dean takes the paper, ashamed of how his hand shakes. He stares at it, feels the power running through the string of sigils drawn in gaudy purple marker. “Thanks,” he begins, “I guess––”

But when he looks up, Gabriel is already gone.

*

Sam has no Plan B. Not for lack of trying––he’s spent every conscious thought since Dean left with Gabriel trying to devise some sort of back up, but he’s still got nothing. Because if they fail––if Lucifer catches Dean and Gabriel, if he doesn’t kill them outright––what the hell is Sam supposed to do about it? What _can_ he do? He’s just one guy, human, no more supernatural powers, no defense against the fucking Devil.

But he does have something Lucifer wants. And if Lucifer has Dean––

Sam grits his teeth, forces the thought away even as it crosses his mind. His brother and Gabriel haven’t been gone that long, there’s no reason to start making deals. Not yet.

Sam’s phone rings by his head, makes him sit bolt upright where he’s been sprawled across a cardboard-stiff mattress in another innocuous motel room. His eyes catch the caller ID as he grabs for the phone––the heaviness in his gut lifts, evaporates as he answers.

“Dean?”

_Hey, Sammy._

He swings his legs over the edge of the bed, stands to pace––feels closed in by the low ceilings and crumbling, charcoal grey walls. “Are you okay? Is Cas––?” His voice drops off and he bites down on his lip, unable to finish the sentence.

_We got him, Sam. Gabriel brought us to Bobby’s. We’re fine. Everything’s going to be fine._

But Dean’s voice doesn’t sound fine: it sounds hoarse, shaky and choked like he’s holding something back. Sam grabs his duffel off the floor, already packed and ready to go except for a rain damp shirt he left hanging to dry over the back of a chair. He hesitates as he reaches to retrieve it. “Dean? What happened?”

On the other end of the line Dean takes a deep breath, but it’s unsteady, pained like he’s trying to breathe around a broken rib. _He made Cas drink his blood._ It’s so quiet Sam can barely hear it. _Lucifer made Cas..._

And that weight is back in Sam’s chest, pulling him down and he’s secretly relieved he’s not there to see his brother’s face. “Shit,” he whispers. “Does that mean...?”

_It means get your ass here, now,_ Dean cuts him off, and Sam is thankful for that, too. 

“I’m coming,” Sam nods, forgets the shirt on the chair and grabs his bag and the keys and is already out the door before Dean can add a weak, _Hurry_.

*

Dean stands alone on Bobby’s porch, phone snapped shut, the back of his hand pressed to his lips. It’ll take Sam four days to get here, three if he doesn’t stop to eat or sleep. Dean doesn’t know if he can wait––he wants his brother here with him, now. He doesn’t want to do this alone. Doesn’t know that he can, not again. He feels like an old dish cloth, twisted and wrung out, threadbare and unraveling.

Bobby’s waiting for him inside, face long, a bucket of hot water and a sponge in his lap. “Extra bedding’s in the hall closet,” he says. “It gets awful cold down there, at night.”

Dean nods, “Thanks,” takes the offered bucket and heads for the stairs down to the panic room.

Castiel’s still a filthy, naked heap on the floor. For a moment, Dean hesitates, wonders where he should start. He doesn’t want to wash the angel without clean clothes and bedding to settle him into; he doesn’t want to leave Castiel lying there all covered in blood and dirt a minute longer.

Sometimes, Dean hates making decisions. Sometimes he thinks it would be easier to just do as he’s told, fulfill his destiny, _say yes..._

He goes back upstairs to get the sheets and blankets, adds a pair of soft grey sweats and a tee shirt to the pile. He gives the cot a skip––knows from first hand experience how uncomfortable it is––and makes up a mattress on the ground instead. It doesn’t have the luxury of a built in restraint system, but Dean figures they won’t need any cuffs or belts, not while Cas is still sleep-whammied (thank you, Gabriel).

Dean stretches Castiel out on the floor, tries not to think too hard about what he’s doing, not when the first dab of the warm, wet sponge reveals smooth flesh. 

Dean cleans Castiel’s face, loosens dried and caked blood with a gentle dribble of water, swipes it away from around Castiel’s mouth with his thumb. 

He holds the angel’s arm in his lap, palm up, swabs the inner crook of his elbow. 

He scrubs behind Castiel’s ears, around his throat––dunks the sponge and squeezes a shower of soapy water out over Castiel’s hair.

It’s too close––too intimate. Dean spends an unnecessary length of time washing Castiel’s feet.

It’s only after he has finished the hard work, maneuvering the angel’s arms through the sleeves of the tee shirt, sliding sweat pants up over too narrow hips, that Castiel stirs to consciousness. He makes a pained noise and twists impossibly in Dean’s arms, eyes peeling open and sliding warily between the dark corners of the panic room and Dean thinks it’s like trying to hold onto a cat.

“Hey, Cas,” he says, “it’s okay, you’re safe––”

But then Castiel’s eyes lock onto Dean’s, and whatever words Dean meant to say shrivel up in his throat. Castiel’s eyes are glassy, the pupils blown unnaturally wide, and he’s gasping like he can’t catch his breath when he asks, “Where’s Lucifer?”

Dean shakes his head, “Not here.” His grip on Castiel’s shoulders tightens as he tries to push the angel down into the bedding. “Relax, okay? It’s over, you’re safe––”

Castiel clenches his jaw, teeth bared in a half grimace as he pushes back at Dean, refuses to lie down. “I have to get back to him...”

Dean’s stomach drops at the words, but he doesn’t let Castiel go, puts his whole weight behind forcing the angel down on his back. “Like hell you do,” he grunts, because Castiel is still fighting him, squirming and bucking and Dean is more than a little grateful, now, that Gabriel left the collar in place. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“You can’t keep me here.” Castiel’s voice is cold and sharp as ice, his brow furrowed in measured outrage. And when Dean’s gaze flits down to the collar, he sees how the sigils branded in the metal glow and pulse, sees how the intensity mirrors the fierce concentration pinching the corners of Castiel’s eyes. Dean knows the angel is trying to access his grace.

But he can’t, and his body sags beneath Dean’s in exhaustion. The glow fades from the binding sigils and Castiel’s eyes fall closed, breath coming in short, ragged gasps, his face turned away into the bedding. “I’m sorry, Cas,” Dean sighs, moves off the angel. “It’s for your own good.”

*

Dean watches the light of morning nudge through the blinds, crawl slow and lazy across the floor, turning black to grey, banishing the shadows of night. It feels like the end of a battle, like Dean should be thankful to have survived. But he’s not, not really––the relief is there, but it’s weak, tempered by the knowledge that there’s worse yet to come.

Bobby cooks breakfast, pancakes faintly salty from the leftover bacon grease on the griddle. They sit in the kitchen, Bobby’s wheel chair pulled up to the table, coffee and quiet between them. Not for the first time Dean is thankful Bobby knows when not to ask questions; is too tired, now, to be bothered with answers. 

But Bobby’s seen Dean’s face, he can guess easy enough why the angel’s on lockdown. “Go sleep,” he orders the younger hunter, “while things are still quiet.”

Dean doesn’t argue. He puts his dishes in the sink and heads up to the ill-used guest bedroom on the second floor, all piles of books and weapons and a filmy layer of dust. But it’s as far from the panic room as he can get, far enough, he hopes, that he won’t hear when the screaming starts. And he knows it will start soon. 

*

The air is musty and hot with his own breath, trapped beneath the patchwork quilt. Dean doesn’t know how long he’s been asleep, feels like he just put his head down, but he’s so thoroughly nested into the blankets, now, he knows it has to have been at least a couple hours.

And Bobby is hollering for him at the bottom of the stairs, sounding hoarse and almost frantic and Dean sits bolt up right, throwing the blankets aside, forcing himself to full consciousness. “I’m coming!” he yells back, swings his legs over the side of the bed and fights off the rush of vertigo that hits him when he stands. Fuck, he should have never gone to sleep.

Dean’s still rubbing at his eyes when he reaches Bobby on the first floor––Bobby who’s got a sawed-off in his lap and a creased, worried look on his face. “Like waking the dead,” he grunts, turns his chair and wheels off toward the kitchen.

Dean rolls his eyes and follows after the older hunter, is about to spit out a retort when he hears something, a voice, low mumbling seeping up through the floorboards. _Cas..._

Bobby watches the color drain from Dean’s face. “He started about half an hour ago,” he explains. “Best I can tell, it’s some sort of chant, same words over and over again.” He offers Dean the shotgun. “You better get down there...he could be trying to work some sort of angel spell.”

Dean stares at the proffered gun, shakes his head––he won’t need it, couldn’t shoot Cas even if the angel was trying to tear his guts out through his throat––steps past Bobby and opens the door to the cellar.

The chanting is clearer, now, a coarse rumble of short, hard syllables Dean has come to recognize as Enochian. He takes the steps two at a time, only pauses long enough to throw the lock on the heavy iron door before he’s storming into the panic room.

He stops short at the scene which greets him––walls covered in bloody sigils, a shard of glass, Castiel’s too pale face and sweat-matted hair––

“Son of a bitch,” Dean breathes, forces his legs to move, to carry him across the room to where Castiel sways on his feet, blood pouring down the insides of his arms.

Castiel turns away from him, hand raised to smear another glistening red mark on the wall, but his legs simply fold up beneath him.

Dean scrambles to catch him before he hits the ground, but Castiel’s arms are slippery with blood and there’s more on the floor, slick beneath Dean’s boots, and he can’t keep his balance and they both go down with a graceless thump. And for a moment all Dean can feel is Castiel’s sharp hipbones digging into his belly––Castiel’s slender waist in his hands––Castiel’s legs falling open, and Dean sinking between them. And there’s a moment of unexpected pressure, and Castiel is staring at him with electric blue eyes as he arches up and _grinds_.

Dean’s breath is like a log in his chest, thick and heavy and impassable. He feels Castiel’s hands brushing his shoulders, cupping the nap of his neck, fingers sliding through his hair and drawing his face down, down until he can feel the warm puff of Castiel’s breath on his own lips.

And he acts without thought, turns his head to nuzzle into the curve of Castiel’s palm, feels sticky and slippery and _wet_ and––

Dean jerks back to himself, resists the swell of vertigo at the sight of Cas spread out beneath him––grabs the angel’s slashed wrists, his own hands clamping down on the still raw, bleeding wounds as he pins Castiel’s arms above his head. “Shit, Cas,” he hisses, suddenly breathless, head bowed to rest in the curve of neck and shoulder where the collar rests.

“Dean,” Castiel says, “let me go.” 

The tone of his voice sends chills down Dean’s spine, reminds him of that other time, in Bobby’s kitchen, when Cas threatened him with a fate worse than death. Dean bites his lip and shakes his head, wants to fucking _punch_ Castiel but he can’t let go of his wrists. “No,” he growls, grip tightening, hard enough to crush bone. “No––” and he uses his whole body to slam Castiel’s smaller frame down onto the floor, takes some satisfaction in the pained _Oof_ that rushes past the angel’s dry, cracked lips.

“Let me go,” Castiel says again, voice edged, now, with something like desperation. He twists and squirms and Dean’s not much bigger than him, but he’s heavier, and without the added strength of his grace, Cas can’t get enough leverage to throw him off. “Let me _go_ ––”

“So you can go running back to Jonestown?” Dean huffs. “Sorry, Cas––no Kool-Aid for you.”

Castiel gives Dean a petulant look, a look that says, _I don’t understand that reference_ , but then he’s fighting again, arching his spine and bucking his hips and their groins connect in a way that makes Dean’s breath hitch and he can’t help it, _he thrusts back._

And Cas is gasping and writhing beneath him, lips parted and pupils blown wide, hips rocking now, sliding into rhythm with Dean’s suddenly frantic movements. And it’s so desperate and dirty and _wrong_ but Dean can’t stop himself, leans into Castiel’s heat, mouths at the chafed flesh along the edge of the collar. Castiel isn’t fighting him, anymore––Castiel moves with him, chin tipped up to bare his throat, an offering for Dean and he takes it, drags his teeth just under the angel’s jaw, laves his tongue into the branded sigils on the collar and it’s _that_ non-contact that makes Castiel shudder and come, wet warmth pooling between them. 

Dean tenses and follows close behind.

When it’s over, Castiel is limp and unresisting––he leans against Dean’s side when the hunter pulls him up and over to the cot––watches from behind half-lidded eyes as Dean meticulously cleans and bandages his wounds. And when Dean slides his wrists through the leather medical restraints built into the cot, pulling the cuffs tight, Castiel doesn’t protest, just huffs a tired breath and lets his eyes drift shut. 

But he can tell when the hunter moves away, and he makes a soft, frightened noise.

Dean hesitates at the door of the panic room, but he’s too weak, can’t will himself to look back.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean can’t bear to watch, to sit by and do nothing as his friend fights this new agony.

Dean takes what might be the longest shower of his life––stands under the spray, steam trapped and billowing behind the curtain, as the water goes from scalding to hot to warm to cold. Even then he still feels dirty, like maybe he should take a sharp knife and try to scrape the taint from his skin. He doesn’t understand how it happened, how he could let himself take advantage of Castiel like that. 

Except that he’s lying to himself––he understands perfectly––he’s a monster, should’ve never been set loose from Hell. Where he belongs.

After his shower, with a clean set of clothes scavenged from the musty chest of drawers he and Sam have claimed as their own, he goes into the kitchen and pours himself a glass of Old No. 7. He settles with it in the den, flips through an old fish and gun rag, listening for screams that don’t come.

Night rolls in like a storm and Bobby lures Dean into the kitchen with the smell of chili and fresh bread. He’s surprised to find he’s hungry, polishes off two bowls and half a loaf with hardly a pause for air.

Bobby watches him with narrowed eyes, brow furrowed under his cap and mouth pinched into a thin line. But he doesn’t say anything––doesn’t have to, not really, has this way of projecting intent through the air that makes Dean duck his head and avoid eye contact. 

Bobby huffs, throws his napkin down on the table and wheels over to the counter. Now it’s Dean’s turn to watch, and he knows the instant Bobby grabs the TV tray what’s expected of him. The older hunter slops more chili in a fresh bowl, grabs a slice of bread and fills a water bottle from the tap––hesitates a beat, and then adds a straw to the mix.

Dean wipes his mouth with his napkin, pushes back his chair with the intention of retreating to the den, but Bobby cuts him off at the pass. He all but shoves the TV tray and its contents at Dean, his voice an annoyed grunt: “Take it to him.”

Dean stammers. “Cas doesn’t need to eat––”

“If that collar’s doing its job, your angel might be needing more than you’d think.” The _idjit_ is implied. Bobby makes another shoving gesture with the tray. “Get your ass down there and check on him.”

*

He hesitates outside the door to the panic room, listening, too afraid of the silence to look in through the little window. The tray balanced on one hip, his free hand on the door handle, he breathes deep, steels himself for whatever might await him on the other side. He has an idea what to expect, has followed the twisting, turning memories of Hell through his own mind––what could be worse?

Dean pushes the door open and steps inside. There’s still blood on the walls, dry and flaking now––still that dark smear on the floor where bodies collided and came together––still Cas, flat on his back, wrists cuffed to the frame of the cot.

Castiel gives no indication that he’s aware of Dean’s presence––just lies there, perfectly still but for the rapid rise and fall of his chest, breath coming too short, too shallow. Dean sets the tray on a table, moves to the angel’s side––crouches there by the cot, one hand taking Castiel’s wrist, measuring his pulse, the other cupping his cheek, fingers pushing back through sweat slick hair.

Every muscle in Castiel’s body is tight, clenching and straining. He’s pale, his skin glossy with sweat, hair damp and matted and clinging to his brow. His eyes slide open at Dean’s touch, but don’t seek out his gaze––remain bleary and unfocused with pain––and he’s taking these horrible, gasping breaths. Too short, too desperate––there’s no way he’s getting enough oxygen. 

“Hey,” Dean whispers, leans close, trying to force Castiel’s gaze. “Take it easy, now, deep breaths––”

But Castiel’s eyes squeeze shut again and he shakes his head, lips trembling, chapped and bleeding and pulled tight over gritted teeth. “Hurts,” he rasps, and the raw desperation in his voice hits Dean like a punch in the gut. Cas is in pain, he’s fighting it with everything he’s got, when anyone else would be screaming themselves hoarse––

“I know, Cas,” Dean murmurs, brushes sweat-damp hair back off the angel’s forehead. “You’re doing real good, just hang in there, okay? It’ll be all right.”

Castiel’s breath hitches. Dean catches the movement, sees the way the angel’s fingers flex and then curl tight into his fist. And there’s blood, dribbling from his palm, squeezed out where nails bite into soft flesh. Castiel’s eyes at last find Dean’s, and the brilliant depths of blue match the sigils emblazoned in the collar. It hangs huge and heavy around Castiel’s neck, darker for the grace which pulses and throbs to escape, like a bird that must unfurl its wings. “Dean––” Castiel gasps, pleading with eyes that know all the secret paths through his soul. “––I can’t––I can’t––”

And neither can Dean. He pulls away from Castiel, loses his balance and falls on his ass and even then he scrambles backwards, needs to put more distance between himself and the angel because Castiel’s pain is such a force around him Dean can feel it like standing too close to a fire, searing the flesh from his bones. “Shit,” he mutters, wipes a hand down his face and now his gaze shifts from Castiel’s down to his waist, to the dark, crusted stain in the crotch of his pants where Dean had held him down and rutted against him like a dumb animal. “Shit,” he says again. “I’m sorry, I’ll...I’m gonna get you some clean pants, I’ll be right back.”

But Castiel has already slipped back into that terrible state of semiconsciousness, tossing his head like he’s fighting to keep it above water. Like he could drown here in the panic room, tied down to a metal cot, the weight of the iron collar around his neck dragging him into the icy depths. Dean decides, then, that he’ll get a heating pad and some more blankets, too.

Bobby’s waiting for him at the top of the stairs, and the way he’s looking at Dean it’s like he _knows_ what happened before, the way Dean lost control and lost himself in his friend, an angel, at his most vulnerable. 

Dean mumbles something about a heating pad before he’s taking the steps up to the second floor two at a time, digging around for another clean pair of pajama pants––Sam’s, this time. _Sam._

His phone is out of his pocket before he can think about it, thumb hovering over his brother’s speed dial, but he catches himself. Sam doesn’t need this lumped on him, doesn’t need to know what the blood has done to Cas and what Cas has done to Dean. And what would Dean say, anyway? He’s not a talker, never one to purge his feelings with whispered heart-to-hearts across phone lines. And even if he wanted to tell Sam, wanted to confess how seeing Cas like this is twisting him up and ripping him apart, the words would come out wrong. They always come out _wrong_.

So he puts his phone away and grabs the pajama pants, and when he’s back in the kitchen Bobby’s boiling water on the stove for a hot water bottle. Dean gives him a grateful smile, but Bobby doesn’t return it.

“Dean.” His voice is low and strained, well-tested. “Just take a minute. You’re not helping, running around like your tail’s on fire.”

Dean shuffles back, settles into a chair. Bobby’s right––he’s panicking, and panicking leads to mistakes. “Thanks,” he mutters, then, “shit,” as he lets his head sink into his hands, heel of his palm rubbing into his eyes. “It’s different than it was with Sam.”

“Course it is, ya idjit.” A pause. “How far off is he?”

“Sam?” Dean shrugs, watches as Bobby uses a funnel to fill the hot water bottle. “Two days, maybe three.”

Bobby nods. “I’ll give him a call.” He wraps the hot water bottle in a towel, dumps it in Dean’s lap. “You all right?”

Dean shrugs. “Will be.”

“Good.” Bobby pushes his wheel chair back, heads for the phone. “Now get your ass back down there.”

*

Dean finds Castiel choking on his own vomit.

Even as he’s dropping everything––blankets, hot water bottle, clothes––and throwing himself across the panic room, Dean’s already blaming himself. He should have known better than to leave Castiel like that, tied down flat on his back, when it’s so painfully obvious how sick he is. 

And the stuff that’s coming out of him is like tar, thick and brown and black. Dean drops to his knees at Castiel’s side, his fingers clumsy, useless things struggling with the straps around Castiel’s wrists. He can’t make his hands work properly, and Castiel is turning his head and puking and gagging and it’s like the viscous black substance is alive, like it _wants_ to make its way up Castiel’s nose.

Dean curses and grabs for the knife in his boot, slides it under the stubborn buckles on the cuffs and gives it a quick twist. One by one he cuts through the restraints until Castiel is free, and then Dean’s grabbing him by the shoulders and dragging him to the floor, turning him on his side so he doesn’t drown in his own vomit.

Terrible, shuddering spasms sweep Castiel’s body as he continues to wretch. Dean tries to wipe some of the stuff away from Castiel’s mouth, feels it thick and viscous on the edge of his thumb––works his fingers into the angel’s mouth to spoon some of the gunk out, to clear an airway.

And Dean’s not panicking, not until he takes his hand back and examines the black goo coating his fingers. In the dim light from above it has a red sheen, looks like something Dean’s seen before––in a morgue, or at a crime scene––

Blood and bile. _Lucifer’s_ blood. Dean has to resist the sudden urge to push Castiel’s limp form out of his lap, to run for the nearest shower because the shit is _everywhere_ , all over the floor and his hands and _Cas––_

*

Clean up takes the better part of the evening, but Castiel seems better, afterwards. Dean’s moved him from the cot to the mattress on the floor, and now the angel sits there with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and the hot water bottle in his lap (replenished three times already), face pale and half-lidded eyes strangely luminous for the fatigue so clearly writ in the slump of his shoulders.

Dean feels those eyes watching him, boring into his back as he scrubs the blood sigils from the wall. A pang of remorse seizes Dean’s gut at the thought that he might be keeping Castiel awake, denying him much-needed rest, but he can’t stop moving, not now. Dean’s exhausted, too, ready to throw himself down on the nearest soft surface and disappear into oblivion. But he won’t––can’t––knows that if he were to stop, now, he’d only start thinking. And he can’t allow that, not when his thoughts invariably shift to the angel shivering in a nest of blankets against the opposite wall––not when they involve pushing that angel down on his back and _taking_.

*

Dean brings Castiel a bottle of Gatorade. “My mom used to give it to me when I had the pukes,” he explains. “It’s got, uh...electrolytes. Helps you re-hydrate.”

Castiel stares up at Dean from where he still sits on the mattress, back to the wall, surrounded by pillows and blankets. “I do not require hydration,” he says, typical Castiel, but the pulsing glow of the sigils on his collar say otherwise.

“I think maybe you do,” Dean sighs, settles down beside the angel. “At least while you’re wearing that.”

Another throb of light from the sigils, and Castiel ducks his head in sudden shame.

Dean nudges his shoulder with the bottle. “Come on,” he coaxes. “I got you a bendy straw.”

Then the sigils flare bright, and this time, they do not fade. Castiel lifts his head, jaw set, stares off at the opposite wall––still streaked with moisture, in places, where Dean scrubbed away the blood. “You are right, not to trust me,” Castiel says. “I do not trust myself.”

It’s well past midnight. Dean doesn’t want to have this conversation––not now––not ever. “Cas––” 

“I would have done anything he asked of me,” Castiel cuts him off. He turns, gives Dean a level look. _“Anything.”_

Dean swallows and lowers his own gaze. There is too much shame in Castiel’s voice, now, to mistake his meaning. And it’s worse, _so much worse_ , added to what Dean did to Castiel. What he _still_ wants to do.

Castiel shifts his gaze from Dean to stare at the wall again. “It was...enlightening, to observe how quickly I broke under pressure. It is good to know one’s limits.”

“Dude, it was _Lucifer_ ,” Dean spits. “Who wouldn’t cry ‘uncle’?”

Castiel doesn’t hesitate. “You. Sam.”

Dean groans. “Enough. Get it through your head, Cas––” And he grabs Castiel by the chin, forces his gaze to make sure the angel is really listening. “––I trust you with my life. I trust you with _Sam’s_ life. You threw yourself on a grenade for him back in Kelley, and I don’t know if I’ll ever have the right words to thank you for that. So do me a solid and just drink the damn Gatorade.”

Castiel’s eyes go round as saucers before they flicker down to the bottle settled on the pile of blankets between them. He chews on his lip. “What flavor is it?”

Relief warms Dean’s belly like a shot of good whiskey. “It’s blue.”

Castiel frowns and tilts his head. “Blue is not a flavor.”

Dean grins and twists the cap off the bottle. “Says you.”

*

Dean wakes to the buzz of his cellphone in his pocket. Castiel is a warm lump pressed against his side, head tucked into the curve of his shoulder, hair a tufted mess just beneath Dean’s chin. He’s suddenly glad he had the foresight to put the damned thing on vibrate––relieved he doesn’t wake the sleeping angel as he wriggles away, finding his feet.

He glances back, sees the way Castiel curls instinctively into the warm spot Dean’s left in his absence, hugging pillows and blankets tight. And Dean can’t help a smile, even as he’s pulling out his phone and checking the caller ID––Sam. He almost wants to let it go to voice mail, or to pick up just so he can tell his brother to fuck off and bother Bobby. 

But Sam is probably worrying his gigantic head off and Dean knows better than to give in to his petulant side, these days. He’s already out of the panic room, halfway up the cellar stairs when he flips his phone open and answers, “Hey.”

Sam sounds thin and strung out, like he hasn’t slept in a year, when he says, _I’m in Chicago._

It’s still early, too early for sane people to be up and about. Dean yawns, scratches, crosses through the kitchen on his way outside for a breath of air. He doesn’t want to wake Bobby, sleeping in the mock bed set up in the study, worries too that his restless footsteps on creaking floorboards might disturb Cas, down in the panic room. “Damn, you’re making time,” he mutters, pushes the back door open and steps out into the brisk dawn, hissing when the air bites his skin.

Sam makes a self-deprecating noise. _Thanks, I guess._ There’s a long stretch of quiet after that, and Dean can hear the Impala through his phone, can hear the purr of the engine and the soft hum of the radio and the dry huff of Sam’s breath. _How is he?_

There’s too much hesitance in Sam’s voice, like he’s expecting Dean to crack, to yell and sling accusations and blame. But it’s not Sam’s fault, and it’s not Dean’s fault, at least not what Lucifer did. There’s still the issue of dry humping a delirious angel into oblivion, but Sam doesn’t know that and Dean’s not bringing it up. “He’s doing good,” he says instead. “It was ugly at first, but I think the worst has passed. He’ll be back to his surly, stick-up-the-ass self before you hit the state line.”

*

Dean stops in the kitchen for some more Gatorade, and while he’s at it, some toast. He figures Castiel must be hungry, and if he’s _not_ , it’s most likely because he wouldn’t know hunger if it jumped up and smacked him in the face. While he’s waiting for the toaster to pop Dean helps himself to leftovers in the fridge––eats a couple of cold mouthfuls of shepherd’s pie straight out of the casserole dish––snakes a slice of Swiss and eats it straight. 

He eats only out of obligation, only because he _knows_ his body needs the fuel to stay strong. This morning he takes no pleasure in the act, too detached, mind and heart (and maybe even soul) all focused on Castiel, so in tune that when a weird chill runs through him, makes every muscle suddenly seize up tight, he abandons the toast and the Gatorade and rushes for the cellar stairs.

He finds Castiel curled in the fetal position, limbs all drawn in against his chest, chin dipped down and face pressed into the mattress. Dean drops down beside him, hand darting out to touch the angel’s shoulder––up close like this he can see the way Castiel’s jaw clenches, teeth bared in a grimace, spasms passing in relentless waves through every muscle in his body. “Cas?” Dean murmurs, the hand that was at first a touch now stroking the back of his neck, fingers twining in his hair. “Talk to me.”

Castiel’s eyes peel open, glassy and unfocused as they struggle to find Dean’s gaze. A shudder sweeps through the angel, from his shoulders down his arms, through his hips to the tips of his toes. Dean watches the way they stretch and strain, as though Castiel is trying to push something out through them. “It’s cold,” Castiel gasps, “and there’s pressure.”

Dean’s eyes dart to the collar around his neck, watch as light ripples through the sigils. He forces himself to breathe slow and deep, forces calm, resists the urge to panic. “Is it your grace?” he asks, hoping and praying to anything that might be listening that it’s _not_.

“No, I don’t think––” Castiel’s words dissolve into a low whine as another spasm racks his body.

Dean can’t bear to watch, to sit by and do _nothing_ as his friend fights this new agony. He moves fast, lying down, aligning himself with the angel. His arms slide around Castiel’s shoulders, pull him into a tight hug, chest-to-chest, Castiel’s face slotted against his neck. “Ssh, I’ve got you,” he whispers, one hand rubbing between Castiel’s shoulders, the other reaching down to grab the blankets and drag them up over their two bodies.

Castiel whimpers, hands fisting in Dean’s shirt, knee pulling up and pushing between Dean’s legs. And it’s nothing sexual, though Dean feels a hot jolt pass through him––it’s only Castiel, trying to wrap himself around Dean, seeking out the warmth of his body. So Dean lets him, pushes down the heady rush of _want_ that comes lurching up from his groin, slings his own leg over Castiel’s and twines them together even tighter.

Dean feels it when the next wave of spasms hits, feels the way Castiel tenses and tries to curl into himself. But this time Dean is there, and as Castiel shrinks he moves in closer. “It’ll pass,” he murmurs near the angel’s ear, “just try to hang in there.” And he thinks of the word Castiel used, _pressure_ ––thinks he knows what it’s like, when something inside is trying to burst free, when it seems like every fiber of your being is about to fly apart.

Dean won’t let that happen, not to his angel. He will hold Castiel together with his bare hands if he must––he will see Castiel through this.

*

He doesn’t know when he fell asleep, only that he did, and he and Cas have shifted around on the mattress. He’s the big spoon, now, holding Castiel tight to his chest, chin dipped to the angel’s shoulder, every breath a breath of the wintery air that seems to cling to Castiel’s soft, dark hair.

Then Castiel moves, presses back against him, and Dean’s heart lurches in his chest at the realization that he’s _hard_ , his cock rubbing into the small of Castiel’s back and the subtle slope of his ass. There’s a slew of choice swear words running through his head because this is just too wrong, too fucked up, and he jerks a little, starts to pull back––

––but Cas grabs his hand, holds it tight against the flat plane of his belly, refusing to let Dean slip away.

“Cas,” he whines, pathetic with shame and need, blood rushing up to flush his cheeks and down to harden the length of anxious flesh between his legs. 

Castiel twists a little, turning onto his back so that he can look at Dean, catch his gaze and hold it. Now they’re front to front, and Dean sucks in another desperate breath as Castiel cants his hips toward Dean’s, legs falling open in lewd invitation. “Please,” he whispers, voice hoarse, the hand that’s not gripping Dean’s reaching up to touch his face, to card fingers back through his hair, dragging a thumb over his lower lip. “Stay.”

And Dean wants to––more than anything wants to grab Castiel’s wrists and pin them to the mattress, wants to cover the angel’s body with his own, wants to tear Castiel apart and crawl inside. But he can’t––shakes his head, makes another, genuine attempt to break away. “No, Cas, this is wrong,” he whispers, frees himself and sits up, sits back.

Castiel looks at him with such despair, such sudden, overpowering self-loathing, Dean can feel it in his gut. “You don’t want me?” he murmurs, head tilted to the side as he pushes himself up to face Dean. His skin is pale, looks paper-thin, like he might tear apart in a strong wind. Then he’s looking away again, blue eyes lowered, voice soft. “I have been touched by the Devil. I am...unclean.”

“No, no that’s not it––” And Dean moves closer to Castiel again, touches him all over as though to prove he’s worthy of it––rubs his arms, grasps his hands––touches his neck, fingers curling against his cheek. Castiel’s breath hitches as Dean draws him in closer, now stroking the length of his spine, slow and deliberate and worshipful, and then the angel folds into him. Dean wraps his arms around his angel, cradles him with cautious affection. “It’s just...” He hesitates, hates the words even as they form on his tongue. “He hurt you so bad, Cas, I just want to make sure you heal.”

“So _heal_ me.”

Dean twitches reflexively at the impatience in Castiel’s voice, realizing for the first time that this is the longest the angel has been without his powers. And while the words cut, sharp and bitter on the knife edge of Castiel’s tongue, Dean doesn’t let go––tightens his arms around his angel and holds on, because he knows what Cas is doing.

Dean speaks now in touches, and the gentleness of it seems to crack open the thin armor Castiel has struggled to rebuild around himself. He shifts in Dean’s embrace, turns his head to press his face into Dean’s neck, breathes him in and out, warm, moist puffs of air on over-sensitized skin. “I’m sorry,” Castiel murmurs. “You must understand, I don’t want that to be my only knowledge of physical intimacy.”

Dean leans back, places a kiss to the side of Castiel’s temple. “It won’t be,” he promises.

And somehow Castiel manages to catch him, craning his own neck to brush their lips together, to whisper a plea into Dean’s mouth: “Show me.”

For an instant Gabriel’s words come back to Dean, his warning that Castiel would do anything, _anything_ , to get back to Lucifer. And Dean wonders if this might be some sort of trick, a painful spasm tightening in his chest at the thought––because he couldn’t bear it, if this weren’t real, if Castiel didn’t really want to experience this from him. He would feel used, and he’d be taking advantage like he did before, when he pushed Castiel to the ground and simply _took_ in a moment of fevered madness.

Dean whispers into the soft hairs curling above Castiel’s ear. “If it were Sam instead of me, would you still want this?”

A shiver passes through the length of Castiel’s body and he tilts his head back, bearing what little he can of his collared throat to Dean’s now questing mouth. “I want it to be you,” he gasps, hands moving to clutch at Dean’s shoulders (and Dean can feel the heat of Castiel’s touch through his shirt as it closes over the hand print). “I trust you.”

And that, there, is all the confirmation Dean requires. Whatever doubts he might have had, all the guilt about past actions and anxiety about what might yet come fade away like the early-morning gloaming.

Dean grabs Castiel around the waist, tugs hard, yanking narrow hips out from under him and manhandling the angel down onto his back. Castiel goes without a fight, his hands still on Dean’s shoulders, not pushing or squeezing, just maintaining contact. Dean bows over him, bracing his own fists on either side of the angel’s head as he bends to press their lips together. Soft first, testing, a sharing of breath before Dean kisses the corner of Castiel’s mouth and Castiel sucks in a gasp and opens for him.

Castiel’s hands slide over Dean’s shoulders, dipping into his back and the valley of his spine, creep up his neck. Fingers spread, glide through Dean’s hair, pull him down and Dean lets himself sink into Castiel’s heat, lets the angel be the one to deepen the kiss. Because this isn’t about Dean, this is about Cas and what he needs and Dean needs to be sure, even now, not to push too hard, not to take what isn’t freely given.

And as he leans back to pull his own shirt over his head, it occurs to him that Castiel has already given him so much, already offered all of himself to Dean. And yes, Dean knows what it means to lose everything, he understands sacrifice, but he only ever thought of it in terms of his own actions. Now, as he tugs up Castiel’s shirt, bares the angel’s torso and the lingering bruises along his sides and his hips, knowing that they are there because of _Dean_ ––because Dean asked for Castiel’s help and Castiel, idiot that he is, could not refuse––he sees the parallel.

He might have recognized it, sooner, if he let himself. And perhaps on a subconscious level, he did––the same way he knows, now, when Castiel is near. The prickle of an electric charge in the air––the taste of ozone on his tongue––the sudden, tense stillness like the world’s holding its breath, waiting on a storm. But Castiel has always been the brightest light burning, too good for Dean’s eyes, and so he never really _saw_ , wouldn’t let himself see, not like he does now.

He and Castiel are so alike, the same pattern woven in different fabric, both tumbling headlong toward the same destiny.

They’re naked, now, skin against skin, nestled down in blankets that rise around them like battlement walls. And Castiel is trembling, eyes wide and glistening as Dean licks and bites, gentle graze of teeth under his jaw. “Are you okay?” he asks, smoothes his hand up and down the angel’s side, more promise than caress. He pulls back enough to look into Castiel’s eyes, drown a little in the ocean blue depths. “Do you want to stop?”

“Yes––” Castiel starts to nod, then shakes his head, _No_ , brow furrowed and soft blue light rippling through the sigils on his collar. He touches Dean’s face, chewing at his own lip as he drags his thumb down to press at Dean’s. “Please,” he says, “continue.”

Dean huffs a laugh at the words, so distinctly Castiel, and obliges––works his way around Castiel’s throat, nudging the edge of the iron collar aside to lick at the tender, chafed skin underneath. Castiel moans and squirms, chin tilted up to grant Dean better access, hips lifting off the mattress to press against Dean’s and when Castiel lets his legs fall open it’s amazing how they fit together like two pieces of a puzzle.

And Dean does his best, to still the angel’s trembling––kisses him slow and deep, thumbs rubbing over cold-peeked nipples, hands moving in careful worship over the lithe plains of Castiel’s body. He is cautious and attentive, alert to every twitch and shudder, always in the back of his mind that Lucifer was here before him, that _the Devil_ has touched Castiel.

But not like this––of that Dean is certain, when Castiel rasps his name against Dean’s lips and wraps his legs around Dean’s waist, ankles hooked across each other, pulling him in deeper. And Dean isn’t sure how or when it happened, but he is inside Castiel, now, warm and safe and _so good_ , like coming in from a storm. 

His hand settles behind Castiel’s knee, pushes it down toward the mattress, folding the angel in half and Dean lengthens his thrusts, aiming for that spot inside. Castiel’s mouth falls open when Dean hits it––he clenches at the blankets and tosses his head, the sigils in his collar burning like the hottest part of a fire. And Dean stares at him in wonder: at the place where their bodies join––at the sheen of sweat on Castiel’s thin chest––at his face, all the tension unwound, open and beautiful in ecstasy because he never learned to keep those emotions hidden. 

That’s just one of the things Dean loves about Castiel.

The angel reaches up, cups a hand to the side of his face and Dean can feel Castiel’s thumb smear something wet and sticky across his cheek. “Dean?” he whispers, breathless even as his brow furrows in concern because _Dean is crying,_ tears welling up and spilling over the floodgates.

And Dean can’t blink them away, can’t bite back the sob that rattles in his throat as he sinks down, pressing himself against the full length of the willing body beneath him. “Thought I’d lost you,” he gasps, hips still pistoning, thrusts turned arrhythmic and desperate. But Castiel just tightens his arms around Dean, presses soft kisses to his eyelids, somehow opens and takes all of Dean into himself.

When Dean comes it’s so good its painful, and he lies quiet and shuddering against his angel as Castiel reaches with his free arm to drag the blankets over them. 

And later, when Castiel at last succumbs to fatigue and snores softly in Dean’s ear, the hunter will slip away in search of a pin and a piece of paper––he will draw his own blood and trace the symbols Gabriel directed into the iron of the collar, and the metal will dissolve into Castiel’s flesh as though it had never been.

But for now Dean is content to lie in his angel’s arms, happy to turn a blind eye as the world outside burns.

 

END.


End file.
